Reroll and Rebirth:
by Mist of Rainbows
Summary: Just about everyone at some point in their lives has wanted a second chance, in this Taylor Hebert A.K.A. Skitter gets to re-roll the dice.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own the Worm serial.

0o0o0

"Would you do it all over again?" Knowing what you know now? Knowing that you end up here, at gunpoint?" The words seemed to echo through Taylor's mind as she lay in a darkness so deep as to make Grue's darkness seem full of light and hope. "Would you do it all over? Knowing you end up here? At gunpoint? Do it over again? Knowing what you know? End up here?"

Taylor groaned as she tried to make sense of why she was being asked the same thing, again and again. "What?"

"Is the point? The point… the point." The words seemed to echo through the darkness and through her bones. An almost familiar female voice whispered, "The answer is yes, save the girl, save the world, agreement."

Taylor blinked as she tried to make sense of everything as she found herself back in her body or at least that was what it felt like. The first sense to return was surprisingly and disturbingly her sense of smell. The disturbingly familiar scent of copper, rot and worse filled her nose causing her to flash back to when she'd been stuffed into the locker the first time. She could feel bugs crawling over her skin, the wet nasty grunge pressing up against her skin and the fact that everything was pressing in on her. She screamed, she thrashed and completely lost it for the second time in her life.

Taylor groaned as she woke to a soft whisper in her ear, "I gazed into the Abyss and the abyss spat Skitter at me." She glanced around frantically looking for whoever had whispered into her ear. "Imp if you're messing with me, I'm going to kill you." She closed her mouth as her father stirred. "Dad?"

Danny blinked as he woke up and saw that Taylor was awake. "How are you feeling?"

"Confused…" She turned then trailed off as she caught sight of her right hand. She wiggled the fingers of her previously missing hand. "What's going on?"

Danny asked, "What is the last thing you remember?"

"I… it felt like the locker again…" She trailed off as a brightly glowing white robed girl stepped into the room. It took her a couple of seconds for her mind to recognize the teen before her as she looked younger than the last time she'd seen her not to mention she was glowing! "Amy?"

Panacea blinked as she came to a stop a few feet away from the bed. "It's Panacea in costume, how are you feeling?"

Taylor stared at the other girl, there was no sense of familiarity, no recognition, no dislike, no real anything other than just a sort of polite sympathy that did little to mask the tiredness she saw on the other girl's face. "Confused, did you fix my arm?"

"Getting powers will do that," Panacea muttered. "Your arm?"

"It was gone…" Taylor trailed off when she realized that Panacea had no idea what she was talking about.

Danny asked, "Powers?"

Panacea winced as she realized that the girl's father had heard her. "I didn't mean to say that outloud."

"It's fine, he knows," Taylor replied offhand.

Danny stared at Taylor. "What do I know?"

Taylor felt a shiver go down her spine at the honest confusion on her father's face. "What is going on?"

Panacea said, "The cops just said that there was an accident, that you were found in a locker with… what do you remember?"

"The locker? That was... " Taylor briefly wondered if she'd had another nervous breakdown. The last thing she remembered before waking up in what she was guessing was her locker, was getting shot by Contessa. "How long was I out?"

Panacea said, "A few hours. It's January 3rd, 2011."

"2011?" Taylor asked faintly.

Danny tried to keep his voice steady as he asked, "What happened with the locker?"

Taylor scowled as she thought back to the locker incident. "I was shoved into my locker after it was filled with nasty…" she shook her head, "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters! Who pushed you?"

"I didn't see them but I have a feeling that it was Madison, Sophia and Emma that shoved me in or talked someone into shoving me in."

"Emma!"

Taylor slumped back against her pillow. "Can we not do this now?" She glanced at Panacea and asked, "Did you heal me?"

Panacea said, "Your father gave me consent."

"And you noticed that I'm a parahuman when you touched me?"

"Sorry… there's no excuse for just blurting it out like that."

Taylor waved it off as she was more concerned about the fact that she was apparently in the past. "Did you fix my powers?"

Panacea frowned. "I just healed your cuts and bruises and made sure you didn't catch anything. Some of the stuff… just yuck. What was wrong with your powers? What are your powers?"

Taylor wasn't sure what she was supposed to say, she could feel her swarm, it seemed the same as before she'd had her powers altered but she could also see a glow around Panacea and feel her power. Thankfully she couldn't control her or anything but seeing the glow around Panacea left her unsettled. She debated with herself on whether or not to tell her for a couple of seconds then realized that it wouldn't be hard to connect the dots and she'd most likely already seen her name on her chart. "You're glowing…"

"Glowing?" Panacea asked curiously.

"I can also sort of sense your powers."

Panacea tensed up as she asked, "Oh?"

"Healing and stuff…" She glanced at Danny then back at Panacea.

Panacea felt her stomach drop as she realized that Taylor knew more than she'd liked about her powers. "Ah, that's interesting…" she trailed of as she glanced at Taylor's father. "Is he glowing?"

"No, just you."

"I suggest not telling anyone that you can sense powers. I don't think most capes would take kindly to anyone that could unmask them just by walking past when they're in their civilian identities."

Danny stared at Taylor. "You're a cape?"

"Apparently…" Taylor still wasn't completely sure what was going on. She'd been going crazy then she'd been shot and woken up in a locker. If that wasn't enough to make her question her sanity, her swarm was back and she could sense capes just by looking at them or at least she could sense Panacea just by looking at her.

Danny asked, "What now?"

Taylor asked, "Am I healthy enough to leave the hospital?"

"Physically yes, mentally…?" Panacea trailed off not really sure what to say. "I'm not sure, how do you feel?"

"The confusion is getting less but I'm sort of hungry." Taylor looked at her dad. "Do you think you can get me something to eat?"

Danny glanced between Panacea and Taylor. "You'll be okay?"

Taylor forced herself to smile. "I'll be fine."

"I'll keep an eye on her." Panacea plastered a smile on her face until Danny left then turned to look at Taylor. "What did your power tell you?"

"That you're more than just a healer. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone."

"As long as I don't tell anyone about your powers?" Panacea asked.

"I'd prefer that you didn't tell people about my powers but I'm not going to spill your secrets. I'm still trying to wrap my head around why I can see a glow around people and why I feel like there's a touch component."

Amy asked, "Touch? What do you think will happen?"

"I'm not sure, it's not like I've had this power for all that long…"

Amy held out her hand. "Here, don't try to do anything just see what happens."

Taylor carefully held out her hand hoping that her power wasn't offensive in nature, not quite trusting that everything was real. She blinked as she touched Amy and accidently activated her new power.

Amy's eyes went wide as she got a brief look at Taylor's physical state before it vanished and she found herself with a vague sense of herself rather than Taylor. She focused on herself and blinked as a translucent window with her picture and a bunch of appearance options appeared. "Do you see that?"

Taylor frowned as she looked around. "See what?"

"My power changed…" She gulped as the window vanished as her attention shifted. She brought her attention back to herself and that strange feeling and the translucent window reappeared. "My power changed… you're a trump."

"I wasn't expecting that." Taylor winced as she realized might have just cost the world one of the best healers ever seen. "Shit…"

Panacea took a breath then let it out as she tried to calm down. "Sorry, it's my fault, I'm the experienced cape, I should have known better. I was just focused on making up for my earlier slip and shit. Carol is going to kill me."

"Maybe it's not permanent… or maybe you just got another power?" Taylor asked hopefully.

Panacea hesitantly reached out and touched Taylor's hand. "Hmm… nothing. I'm not, I don't feel anything… shit." She wasn't sure how she felt, she'd wanted to quit healing people for months now but now that her ability had transformed she wasn't sure how to feel.

Taylor stared at the space over Panacea's head. "Huh, you have a character portrait with your previous powers, a bunch of empty slots and a reroll option, right, okay, this might be fixable."

Panacea blushed slightly as she noticed some of the interesting options her new power gave her. "Can we not fix this for a second?"

"Oh?"

"There's a bust slider and I wouldn't mind fixing my hair color and… yeah, give me five minutes?"

Taylor pulled her hand back. "Sure, if I could fix my breasts, I'd be tempted."

"If I get my normal powers back, we'll see," Panacea offered absently as she played around with the translucent character 'creation' window.

Taylor watched in fascination as Panacea's features and hair color shifted before her eyes. "You might want to be careful so that you can restore your normal looks…"

"Oh, that's not a problem I have multiple character portraits, I swapped to my second portrait." She broke out giggling when she pushed the slider on her bust size up until she was almost falling over with watermelon sized breasts. "Yeah, too much."

Taylor smiled at the absurdity of Panacea's new look. "Maybe a bit…"

Panacea brought the slider back to a nice b-cup then changed her hair to a slightly darker brown and changed it from frizzy to wavy then touched up some imperfections on her face. "Okay, that should be close enough to pass while still being better." She glanced at the empty bathroom. "Can I use your mirror?"

"Sure." Taylor grabbed the pile of clothes her father had brought and pulled her clothes on under her sheet while Panacea walked to the bathroom and studied herself in the mirror. "Hopefully I can fix this."

Panacea spent a couple of minutes tweaking her appearance until she was satisfied that she looked better and yet was still distinctly herself. She checked on any health issues she had and took care of a couple of things that might have come up eventually then stopped focusing on her 'character' sheet and smiled when it vanished and the changes stayed. "Okay, that should do it… can you give me back my old powers?"

Taylor pulled the hospital sheet back and sat up. "I can try." She held out her hand.

"How do I look?" Panacea walked over and touched Taylor's hand.

Taylor studied Panacea's face. "It looks like someone lightly airbrushed your features and styled your hair, it's still you, just improved a bit."

"Excellent, my old powers?" Panacea asked hopefully.

Taylor concentrated and selected Panacea's original power set for her. "That should do it, I hope."

Panacea sighed in relief as her new sense of self vanished and she felt Taylor's health like 'normal'. "They're back, did the changes stick?"

Taylor studied the other girl's face. "Nothing seems to be sliding back to normal, so hopefully?"

"Okay, you're forgiven for scaring me half to death about my powers," Panacea replied happily.

Taylor pulled her hand back. "Good, does that mean you won't tell people that I'm a cape?"

Panacea made a zipping gesture over her lips. "I'll keep your secrets if you keep mine. If people knew that I could alter and change how people look rather than just heal them, I'd never get any peace."

"That sounds fair, considering both of our powers are a bit shady."

"I guess that's one way to look at it. Have you thought about the Wards?"

Taylor frowned slightly as she realized that her new power would draw a lot of unwelcome attention from a whole bunch of people. "Not really, I'd rather just work as a consultant."

"That's probably a good idea considering you could avoid giving them your actual name. Besides, the pay is a lot better as a consultant." Panacea sighed in frustration. "Of course they pay New Wave rather than me."

"That sucks…" Taylor paused for a couple of seconds as she tried to figure out how to blame Sophia for not wanting to join the Wards without revealing knowledge she shouldn't have, "I'm reasonably sure one of the Wards stuffed me in the locker."

"What?!"

"Yeah, one of my attackers had phasing powers like Shadow Stalker and Sophia Hess is dark skinned and hates me… her skin tone fits what I've seen of Shadow Stalker's. I mean I could be wrong but I don't think I am. It would also explain why the school covered up her other bullying."

"You should talk to the police and a lawyer," Panacea replied.

"I'm planning on it." Taylor didn't see a reason to put up with Winslow considering the shit they'd put her through the last time around.

Panacea opened her mouth then closed it as Danny opened the door. "I should get back to my rounds but if you need to talk…" she pulled a card and pen out of her pocket and wrote her cell number on it. "Here, just don't pass it out."

Taylor took the card. "Thank you."

Danny asked, "Is she well enough to leave?"

Panacea said, "I fixed all of her physical problems, try not to cause her too much stress for a couple of days."

"Thank you." Taylor wasn't sure what was going on exactly but if she actually was back in the past then she was going to figure out a way to help Amy reduce her stress load before she snapped.

"You're welcome, I had fun." Panacea left to go heal people with a smile on her face for the first time in she wasn't sure how long. Her brush with losing her powers had reminded her how nice having the ability to heal people was.

Danny asked, "Are you ready to leave?"

"Yes, I've spent enough time here already," Taylor didn't really see a point in staying in the hospital as she wasn't sick or at least she didn't think she was sick. Either way, she wanted more information and didn't want to rack up more of a hospital bill than she'd already incurred. If this trip into the past was actually legit then there was no reason to burden her father with excess medical bills. If it was some type of trick, staying in a hospital would make it easier for whoever had her and she didn't really want that. "No talk about powers or anything please, no calling the Wards either."

"Why?"

"I'll explain once we get home, just trust me."

"I'm going to want an explanation." Danny just wanted to know what was going on and what Taylor's ability was.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor tensed as an officer walked up to her and her father as they were finishing up the discharge paperwork. It took her a couple of tense seconds to remind herself that she was the victim and that she wasn't a wanted villain.

A grey haired officer asked, "Miss Hebert?"

Taylor nodded. "That would be me."

"I'm Officer Murphy, I was hoping you had time to write up a report for the attack, accident or…?" He trailed off as he noticed her body language shift. 'Definitely an attack rather than the prank gone wrong the school is claiming.' He didn't buy the school's claim as no one he knew considered filling a locker with biohazardous waste then shoving a teenage girl into it a joke.

"Attack, I was stuffed into a locker filled with used feminine products… I'm not sure what else to call that other than attempted murder via disease or suffocation."

He asked hopefully, "Did you see your attacker?"

Taylor shivered. "No, I was puking from the smell when someone grabbed me and shoved me into the locker from behind. I'm almost sure that it was Sophia Hess but I can't prove it, there were plenty of witnesses, I'm sure someone texted about it or posted something about it."

The officer stared at Taylor in disbelief. "Wait, you're telling me that people saw this and didn't do anything about it?" He'd spent years honing his bullshit detector and he didn't think she was lying which meant that something weird was going on here because what she was saying certainly didn't line up with what the school reported. Besides, they had evidence that the girl had been pulled from the locker and no one would willingly subject themselves to that just for the chance to frame someone when there were far easier ways to deal with people.

Danny stared at his daughter, "Wait, you mean no one told the truth?"

"Welcome to my life. Did the cameras pick anything up?"

Murphy shook his head. "I haven't gotten the chance to check the copy of the recordings the school sent us. I was told this was a simple prank gone wrong, that is obviously not the case."

Danny twitched as he worked to control his temper. "A prank?"

Murphy sighed as he held up his hands in a calming gesture. "As I'm sure you know, we get called to Winslow at least a couple of times a week between stupid pranks, gang members doing something stupid and various other problems. Now that I know it wasn't a prank, I'll make sure the forensic team takes a good look at the locker and we'll see what we can dig up." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's actually getting late and you've had a horrible day, do you want to finish this at the police station tomorrow?"

Taylor briefly considered putting things off until tomorrow after getting the lay of the land but wanted to get things on record before the school buried everything. "I'd rather not give any of the bullies time to come and kill me in my sleep or steal evidence. They've already tried to kill me at least once already. Once they learn that I'm out of the hospital, I have a feeling they're going to try to cover their asses, either by Emma's father threatening to sue my Dad into the poor house or by Sophia Hess trying to sneak into my home and kill me in my sleep. I need to grab my journal from home that has dates and times for their harassment over the last couple of months as well as the teachers that witnessed the harassment and did nothing or walked away. At the very least, I want a restraining order against them for the rest of the crap they've pulled."

Murphy scowled. "You're telling me that teachers as in multiple teachers witnessed the crap leading up to this attack and did nothing?"

Danny tightened his fist as he worked on not screaming or doing anything else that would be considered unhinged.

"That about sums it up, yeah," Taylor replied.

Murphy twitched as he pictured his daughter having to deal with the same type of crap that Taylor had went through. "In that case, I'll follow you to your home, then we'll go to the station and file a report. Even if we can't get someone to turn on the bullies, I suspect that the cameras will show something."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor felt wrung out by the time Officer Murphy had finished taking her statement and looking over the journal filled with notes on the trio's bullying. While she'd put most of the crap behind her, revisiting it hadn't done anything for her current mood or stability. Only the faint hope of something actually changing this time around kept her from just tossing her hands up in disgust at trying to get justice.

On the upside, the whole experience was helping to rule out some master or stranger ability and as far as she could tell, she really was back in the past for some unknown reason. She wasn't sure why or even who had brought her back, the only thing that made sense was that someone from Cauldron had brought her back but that didn't explain her extra power or why things sucked so badly if they could send people back through time. They'd been sure that she didn't have the potential to second trigger which meant that they'd either lied, which didn't surprise her or they'd been wrong which also didn't surprise her all that much considering all of the stupid shit they'd done while trying to 'save' the world. She rested her head against the wall as her father finished his 'chat' with the officer in charge of the case.

'Assuming that I'm actually in the past and not hell or some coma, I'm going to need a plan.' The idea of actually sitting on the sidelines didn't appeal to her considering someone had given her a second chance. She drifted as she thought about costume ideas, ways to make money, people to recruit for her hero or rogue team as well as how she was going to clean up the streets while still making a tidy profit. She'd been drifting for several minutes when her Dad coughed to get her attention. "Is it time to go?"

Danny put his hand over his mouth to cover a yawn. "They might have more questions once they've investigated things more but we can take care of that tomorrow or the next day."

"Good, I'd like to get home." Taylor wanted to get home and start working on her costume as soon as possible.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor woke with a yawn and realized that everything was as she'd left it the night before and that she was still in the past. She'd decided not to try and slip out, mostly because she knew her dad would be checking up on her for at least a couple of nights in case she had nightmares. Thankfully she'd been too tired to have nightmares or maybe she was just screwed up enough that being tossed back into the locker hadn't trumped the rest of the shit she'd had to deal with the last couple of days. After all, what was one girl being stuffed into a locker, compared to the end of the world?

She reached out and checked on her spiders that were weaving silk in the basement and made a couple of adjustments as she worked on her plans for the day. She knew her father was going to want her to spend the day relaxing, especially after having to deal with the police last night, she also knew that Shadow Stalker would be out for blood once she realized that she had tried to get her in trouble. 'Murphy or not, I need people to come forward and testify or I doubt they'll get anywhere.' She had a feeling that offering a reward for information leading to the capture of the guilty parties would help convince people to come forward. 'If I can get my costume done, then I can hit the Merchants tonight, that would give me enough money to put up a reward for someone to come forward not to mention call a better lawyer than dad can afford.'

She wouldn't have even thought about it the last time around but her time as a villain and strangely enough a Ward had taught her a lot about how the world worked and how to get things done. She glanced over at her computer, she really didn't want to use her computer to access PHO, at least not to create her new cape name considering who Dragon was. She also didn't really want to use the library as there were witnesses and a sign in sheet. She sighed as she rolled out of bed then headed toward the kitchen to see if she could convince her father to head into work rather than stay home and hover. She doubted that she'd be able to convince him not to take the time off but there was always a chance.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor glanced down at her collection of costume bits, "What do you think?"

Danny frowned slightly as he stared at the bits and pieces that Taylor had laid out on the kitchen table. "An old pair of goggles, a grim reaper costume that is too small and torn pajamas, please tell me that you're not going out like this?"

Taylor laughed. "Don't worry, I'm cutting apart the goggles for the lenses and I'll turn the reaper costume into a pattern for my cloak and the pajamas for the leggings of my armor."

"I don't like the idea of you running around the city being a hero."

"The point is that we need money to put up for a reward to get the idiots at school to do the 'right' thing. It's either be a hero or be an exterminator and I'd rather be a hero."

"Someone will come forward-"

Taylor shook her head. "They haven't yet, not a one, nothing. If we post a thousand dollar reward for information that leads to an arrest, I have a feeling the sheep will turn on the trio like sharks in bloody water."

"That's a decent chunk of money, I already owe the hospital for your stay…"

Taylor shrugged. "Dip into my college fund, dip into the emergency fund, I don't care which but if it helps get justice then it will be worth it. If no one comes forward then you'll get the money back, if it helps catch someone then it's worth it. If nothing else, I'll pay you back. I've done some research, I can easily make that off bounties and salvage by taking out various gang members once I have my costume." She pressed on before he could cut her off, "That's ignoring any type of settlement from the school for failing to keep me safe and police their troublemakers."

Danny exhaled the breath he had been holding. "I still don't like it, they should come forward because it's the right thing to do."

"Yeah, except if that was the case, they'd have already came forward," Taylor replied bitterly.

"Fine, I'll call officer Murphy and set something up."

"Thank you." Taylor sighed in relief that her father was willing to put up the money, then again her hospital stay had been short this time around which meant that the hospital bills weren't anywhere close to what they were the last time around.

"We'll be okay, you don't have to rush things." Danny studied his daughter for ten seconds or so then headed into the living room to call the police station.

Taylor grabbed her scissors then went to work on the costume. She was planning on making the robes out of spider silk but the junk costume would be a good place to start.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor opened her front door after checking the peephole. She was a little surprised to see the well known cape dressed in normal clothes standing on her porch. "Amy?"

Amy smiled hesitantly. "Can I come in?"

"Sure." Taylor opened the door and stepped back after glancing around. "What brings you by?"

"I had the time and my sister has a date which means that I'd have to be home alone. Besides, I was thinking about the other ability you let me use and I figured I could at least offer to fix your eyesight and maybe tweak your breasts a bit…" Amy blushed. "If you want, not that there's anything wrong with… shutting up now."

Taylor held out her hand. "I'd love to have my eyes fixed."

Amy reached out and checked on Taylor's health then tweaked her eyesight to be about fifty percent better than 'perfect' vision. "There."

Taylor blinked a couple of times then reached up and took her glasses off. "Wow…" she trailed off as she glanced around the room and realized just how crystal clear her vision was. "Huh, I need to wash the walls."

Amy smiled at the look of wonder on Taylor's face. "Makes all the difference doesn't it?"

"Yes." Taylor set her glasses on the end table. "Feel free to sit down if you want."

Amy sat down on the couch. "Did you want to change anything else?"

Taylor paused as she considered Amy's question. "If you're offering, genetic screening for issues, larger breasts, improved muscle density and bone structure? Maybe improved oxygen capacity?"

Amy raised her eyebrows. "You're planning on being a hero, right?"

"I'm planning on being part of a hero team though I have a feeling I'm going to have to create it myself. I can't really join the Wards with my power and New Wave is out because I want a secret identity."

"I don't blame you, if it wasn't for Victoria, I'd consider vanishing and changing my appearance. I'm famous and I don't get a lot of the perks from it… sorry, it's just a sore subject."

"Anytime you want, I'll swap your powers and you can vanish into the wind for a day or two."

"I might take you up on that." Amy shook her head. "Okay, let's see what improvements we can make, just don't tell anyone I can do this, I've spent a decent amount of effort playing up the healing angle." She held her hand out.

Taylor reached out and touched Amy's hand. "Your secrets are safe with me."

"Thanks." Amy used her power and tweaked Taylor's genetics a bit so her breasts would end up a touch larger than they would have and a bit faster then tweaked things so that Taylor would end up a couple of inches taller when she stopped growing. She reinforced the other girl's bones and muscles then went to work tweaking various organs and making sure that everything was working efficiently. None of it was really enough to give her more than a brute 0 or maybe 1 but it would help keep her safe against normal thugs.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor frowned slightly as the glowing form of Lisa walked up and sat down at her table after scanning the crowd for a couple of seconds. "Can I help you?"

Lisa smirked, "You called from a payphone, how did you get that number…" She frowned, "I gave it to you?"

Taylor muttered, "Thinker bullshit."

"And you know me, that's interesting, I'm listening," Lisa replied with a smirk as she glanced around to make sure there was enough noise to mask their conversation.

Taylor asked softly, "How would you like to save the world Lisa and destroy your snake of a boss?"

"Save the world? You're serious, so you're either delusional or you really think that you can do something about the endbringers and my boss."

"I can certainly do something about your boss, I know how his power works, tell me I'm lying."

Lisa frowned as her power told her the strange teen was telling the truth. "Who the hell are you?"

"It's not as much fun when someone else has all the cards, is it?" Taylor asked with a faint amount of amusement.

"Okay, you're giving me a headache, start explaining or I'll call in my friends."

"Let's take a walk, you can call Brian if you want."

Lisa winced as her power tried to fill in details without having enough facts. "You're doing this on purpose."

"Maybe, let's go." Taylor used her bugs to keep tabs on Brian and Rachel as her and Lisa walked away from the cafe so that they could actually talk without being overheard.

Lisa glanced around. "Start explaining, as long as you don't shout we should be fine."

"I need to find Leet and Uber as well as the Travelers, the Travelers should be in or near Boston at this point."

Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Leet and Uber? They're jokes…" She winced as her power gave her information that couldn't be right. "Why do you want to talk with them?"

"Because Leet can build anything once, as in anything; a lightsaber, a dimension traveling police box, a starship, you know, anything. That said, the closer he gets to something he's made before, the more chance of problems. What if I could fix that, what if I could reroll his ability? He could be a hero, he could be a rogue or a valuable resource. Sure, he's a bit of a dick but a lot of that is depression and his powers growing weaker the more he uses them. If I could fix that, he could do amazing things."

Lisa stared at Taylor in surprise as a couple of things clicked, "You can alter powers."

"I can reroll a person's power so their powers express differently. If a villain group wanted to rebrand as rogues or heroes, I could make that happen, if a hero wanted a better power, I could reroll until they got something better. If a villain has a really dangerous power, I could reroll that."

"Bullshit…"

"You don't believe me?"

Lisa snorted. "No, your power is bullshit."

"I know."

"Why contact me?" Lisa asked curiously.

"How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?" Taylor grinned.

Lisa rubbed her temples. "Just explain before my head explodes."

"Your power takes everything you've experienced and puts it all together in the form of leaps of intuition. You've managed to hack into various places and you have contacts with some interesting and dangerous people. You're also at heart a decent person despite being a villain. You've been hitting places that are insured or that belong to various gangs. Coil grabbed you off the street at gunpoint and recruited you."

"Tell me something I don't know, like how his power works," Lisa muttered.

"He can basically run two timelines at once and pick the one he likes more. For example, he calls you in for a meeting, in one timeline he tortures you, in the other he has a nice civil conversation but seems to know more than he should. Does that fit so far?"

Lisa shivered as she recalled a couple of times that Coil had a smug look that didn't really fit what they were talking about. "Good so far. How are you going to get rid of him if he can run two different timelines and pick the best?"

"You're going to run a job, a dangerous job, he'll use his power and give you a yes or a no for running it. When that happens, you call me and I'll hit his lair. Once he's dealt with I'll explain the rest of my plan to turn the Undersiders into a rogue group that can help save the world and make millions at the same time."

"I'm not sure Regent would be interested in being a hero and Bitch has a record and no secret identity."

"Alec likes thumbing his nose at people, villain or hero. He could stand to have a different ability than muscle control, I mean making people twitch. Most of Bitch's problem stems from how her power warped her ability to deal with people. Her abusive foster parent tried to kill her only friend in a pool and she snapped, that's an open and shut case of temporary insanity and her power doesn't give her control of her dogs, so the murder charge could be tossed with a bit of work. Without that, everything else is junk that could be argued down to community service, say, training service or police dogs. Of course that's assuming that we don't just change her appearance and rebrand her as a different hero."

Tattletale frowned. "You've put a lot of thought into this, why?"

"Again, I'm not explaining until Coil is dealt with, considering his power the less you know in this case the better. Just remember if he catches and tortures you that he'll probably go with the other timeline so don't say anything you shouldn't."

"That's cold." Lisa could see the logic but wasn't sure how much it would help if it came down to it.

"He's a villain and not the friendly cops and robbers type of villain."

"Assuming that I buy this, what type of dangerous job were you planning on us doing?"

"Lung's casino," Taylor replied with amusement.

Lisa twitched as her mind conjured a bunch of things that could go horribly wrong with that course of action. "You're insane, you want us to rob his casino?"

"It's perfect, it's dangerous enough that Coil will split the timeline and having Lung publicly 'kill' the Undersiders means that when heroes pop up with similar powers, no one will be looking for you."

"Right, except for the whole getting killed bit," Lisa replied sarcastically.

"You're a genius at planning, make sure that part doesn't happen. He's just one man and he can't be everywhere. As long as you can hit the casino and then get out before he gets there, you shouldn't have a problem escaping with his cash. He'll likely come after you but that just means you'll have to lay low or fake your deaths and rebrand as rogues."

"I'd have to run the job by the others," Lisa replied.

"You don't actually have to pull the job, just do the planning and the lead up so that I can hit Coil."

"No, if we're going to plan everything, we might as well pull it off."

Taylor frowned slightly as she thought about the next part of her plan. "I don't suppose you know a decent cape lawyer."

"Why?"

"Because I need a consulting contract written up for the Protectorate and I need to look at the legality of rerolling villain powers."

Lisa said, "I know a couple of people that should be able to help with that but it's not going to be all that cheap. Do you have a cape name picked out?"

"Boggle, Jester, or Yahtzee."

"Go with Jester. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take some pain meds, con a Tinker into being a distraction and plan a raid."

"I'll drop you a line with the new PHO login once I get things set up."

Lisa pulled a cheap burner phone out of her bag and input the number of a decent cape lawyer into it. "Here's the contact number for the lawyer and a way for me to call you when we're ready. We should have everything ready to go by tomorrow. His casino was on my list of possible locations but you knew that didn't you?" She handed the phone to Taylor.

Taylor accepted the phone with a smile. "Stay safe. I'll explain everything after we deal with Coil."

Lisa sighed as she turned and headed away from the headache inducing cape at a brisk walk.

Taylor smiled then turned and headed toward the business part of town as she pushed the button to dial the lawyer.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor felt rather silly wearing her 'new' tossed together costume. It consisted of an old monster mask, a pair of sunglasses to keep people from seeing her eyes or face, a scarf that she'd wrapped around her neck, a hooded jacket that helped hide the fact that she had long hair, several shirts to add some bulk to hide her skinny form and gloves and an old flannel to hide her hands and arms. Combined with three pairs of socks, oversized work boots that she'd picked up at the junk store, a pair of sweats and some old overalls it was next to impossible to put a race or even gender to her. She was using two cheap voice changers to help disguise her voice by giving it a strange echo. Sure, it wasn't perfect but it should be good enough at least until she could get a professional quality voice changer.

Armsmaster frowned slightly as he looked over the mismatched cape. 'And they're claiming to be a trump, I should have had Miss Militia deal with this joker.' He tried to keep the scorn out of his voice, "Your costume is…"

"It's not a costume, it's a disguise. I'm a trump, I permanently alter powers. I'd rather my civilian identity wasn't ruined by some overzealous paper pusher."

"Permanently?" He asked with concern. He'd been told about her supposed ability to alter powers but not the permanent part.

"Relax, I can restore a person's original power in case they don't like the changes they end up with."

"Changes?"

"I reroll aspects of a person's power, as in your power is miniaturization, if I rerolled it, you might be able to shrink."

"I'd rather you not mess with my power. Do you have to touch people?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Taylor smiled behind her mask.

"That isn't a reassuring answer," he replied uncomfortably.

"It wasn't meant to be, reassurance isn't my department. I'm merely offering a service and at a substantial discount to heroes."

"Meaning that you'll offer it to villains?"

"My lawyer said to remind you that I'm not a government agency, I can't run background checks. As long as they don't volunteer the information, I don't have to ask. Besides, I'm not Eidolon, my only real method of defense against most capes is rerolling their powers."

Armsmaster scowled but she was technically correct. It would be a pain proving that she was aiding a villain as long as the villain didn't come right out and admit to being a villain. "Why only five thousand a hero?"

"Why not? Heroes fight endbringers and I like being alive. Besides, my power doesn't lend itself to combat except against capes so I have to help however I can. Besides, five thousand dollars a cape adds up and the Protectorate can afford it. They're a multinational organization and I'm just a rogue, living in Brockton Bay. If I reroll twenty heroes that's a hundred thousand dollars, that's enough to live comfortably for a couple of years and a drop in the bucket for the Protectorate."

"You realize that we have more than twenty people that would want different powers, right?"

"And at five thousand dollars a cape, they can have different powers. If I can't give them better powers, I'll restore their default powers."

Armsmaster asked, "Is there a master component to your power?"

As far as she knew there wasn't a master component to her reroll power, just her bug control which wasn't really what he was asking so she had no real issues with telling a version of the truth. "Not that I've seen and not as far as I know."

Armsmaster was relieved when his lie detector registered that as the truth. "Can you cure case 53's?"

"It's a possibility, do you have any handy?" Taylor was hoping that she could as it would make dealing with the Travelers a heck of alot easier.

"I can have some here in twenty minutes, let me make some calls then we'll look over your contract."

"Thank you." Taylor leaned back slightly in the chair and tried to stay calm and not worry about a doorway opening and Cauldron minions jumping through or Contessa paying her a visit.

Twenty rather tense minutes later and Armsmaster came back with a teenage male that looked like a metal statue and an eight foot tall hunched over girl with grotesque muscles. He said, "See what you can do for Weld and Gully and I'll see that you're paid, consider it proof of your ability."

"That sounds fair." Taylor reached out her hand. "Just grab my hand, lightly, I'm not a brute."

Weld reached out and carefully grabbed the strange cape's hand, not sure what he was expecting or hoping for. "Okay."

Taylor sighed in relief when she found that her power actually worked on Weld despite her gloves and his metal skin. "I should be able to reroll your powers. The best result might be to just reroll your powers completely, wait, no there's a switch and it's locked, let's see." She reached out and rerolled the always on aspect of his power. "Okay, that gives a slow change… that's not going to work." She rerolled his power a couple more times until she got one with a switch where he could just switch back and forth between his metal form and his human form. "Okay, that should do it."

"I don't feel any different."

"Okay, let's try something else." She mentally marked the portrait where he had the switch then rerolled his powers.

Weld twitched and lurched before catching himself on the wall as he changed back to human for the first time he could remember. "What did you do?"

Taylor looked at his powers. "I changed your power. You now have the ability to turn part of your body to metal. It's not a fantastic power but at least it got you human again. I'll swap your powers back to a set where you have an on and off switch for your metal form once you get some practice playing with this form. If that's what you want."

Weld steadied himself against the wall. "I'd still have my metal form when I need it but could be 'normal' looking when I didn't need it?"

"Exactly."

Weld smiled brightly, "Let's go with that."

Armsmaster's lips twitched upwards in what might be someday with time and effort be considered a smile. "Fascinating."

Taylor asked, "You have Earth control and enhanced strength, do you want to keep your earth control or try for something better?"

"I'd be happy with fixing my muscles and jaw," Gully replied as she held her hand out.

Taylor reached out and set her hand on Gully's huge hand. She spent a couple of seconds studying the Ward's powers then rerolled the strength part of them. She frowned as the power changed to something that would pull in material from the earth to add to her in horrible ways. "Don't move." She quickly rerolled her power then checked it. "Okay, that's better. A strength boost if you're standing on dirt or stone."

Armsmaster said, "Her appearance hasn't changed."

"Her power warped her but it's no longer keeping her like that. Let me try a couple more power sets." Taylor went back to rerolling until she hit one that gave Gully an ogre like form and would let her change between a normal sized person or at least a mostly normal sized person and a nine foot tall ogre like form with increased strength. "Okay, I think I fixed things. Try concentrating on getting larger."

Gully frowned slightly as she thought about getting bigger and nothing happened. "Nothing."

"Try stretching?" Taylor suggested. She wasn't sure how exactly the other girl was supposed to trigger her power, she just knew what it did.

Gully shouted in surprise as she changed shape and grew another foot. She tried to speak and found her underbite was gone. After a couple of tries she managed to ask, "What do I look like?"

Armsmaster spoke up, "Green and larger but well proportioned."

Weld was reminded of various fantasy orcs or maybe a troll. Either way, her muscles looked even and well toned which was better than before. "You look good."

Gully sighed. "I'm even taller than I was before."

Taylor said, "You should have a smaller form as well."

"And the changes are permanent?" Armsmaster asked with a touch of disbelief.

"So far as I know." Taylor was as sure as she could be that the change was permanent.

"Do you mind staying while we run some tests on their new powers?" Armsmaster figured putting in a call to Panacea to come check Weld and Gully was in order. If they checked out he'd have no problem paying the new cape ten thousand dollars and signing them up as a consultant on the spot.

Taylor didn't see a problem with that as she was curious how they adjusted to their new powers. "That's fine."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Danny stared at the black debit card sitting on the table, "You're telling me that you have ten thousand dollars in a numbered cape account?"

"Yep," Taylor replied cheerfully.

"Ten thousand dollars?" he asked in disbelief.

Taylor resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Yep, that beats what I'd make if I was a Ward."

"Are you putting some of that away for college?"

"Not yet, part of that goes to pay for the reward money and for repairs to the house and half a dozen other things that need to be done around here."

Danny shook his head. "It's my job to take care of you, not the other way around."

"I'm a cape with a valuable power, it's not going to hurt to help out a little."

Danny sighed. "Well, I guess we could fix that step and a couple of things."

"Good. So, I have a confession to make… that's not my only power."

"You have more powers?"

"Bug control."

"Bug control?"

Taylor nodded. "As in I control bugs."

"How many?"

"I've got a four block radius."

"How many bugs?"

"Four blocks, as in EVERY bug in a four block radius," she emphasized.

Danny blinked as he tried to wrap his mind around just how many bugs his daughter could control with that radius. "How much control do you have?"

"I can have spiders weave spider silk garments while directing the rest of them to do other things."

"That's interesting and somewhat terrifying," he said as he seriously considered it.

"So I've been told," Taylor admitted.

"Wait, someone else knows about your bug powers."

"Uh, right… okay that sounded better in my head."

"Taylor…"

"Would you believe me if I said that I'm from the future and went back in time?" Taylor asked innocently.

Danny studied his daughter's face for a couple of seconds then rolled his eyes. "Not when you say it like that."

"Right, so, Amy wanted to hit the movies, do you mind?" Taylor asked hopefully.

"Nice distraction but who have you told about your bug powers?"

"Just you this time around."

He shook his head. "At least you're laughing again…"

"Does that mean I can hit the movies with Amy?"

"How safe is it to go out with a cape that doesn't have a secret identity?"

"We're just going to the movies with her sister and her sister's boyfriend, it's social and normal and I need friends and Amy is nice."

He asked, "Do you need a ride?"

"That would be great." Taylor hadn't been friends with Panacea the last time around but she was hoping that she could keep her from having a mental breakdown this time around and she was surprisingly fun to be around when she relaxed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor jumped slightly as her cell phone vibrated. "Oops, sorry."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about it. Victoria's phone is always ringing."

Victoria snorted. "I'm not that bad."

Dean laughed. "Yes you are."

Taylor glanced around the restaurant as she pulled her phone out. She glanced at the caller ID then opened it and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

Lisa's whisper came over the phone, "We're ready and I got confirmation that we're good to go."

"Copy that, stay safe." Taylor closed the phone and put it back in her pocket.

Dean frowned slightly as he sensed the new girl's excitement. "Something the matter?"

Taylor sent a couple of bugs to chew through Coil's costume on his left leg. "No, just a friend checking in. So, where were we?"

Amy said, "Talking about the new dress that Victoria wants."

"Ah, right, that," Dean muttered good naturedly.

Victoria smiled at her boyfriend sweetly. "It goes with that sexy pair of underwear you liked so much."

Dean blushed. "Moving on…" He glanced back and forth between Amy and Taylor. "So where did you meet?"

Amy spoke up before Taylor could, "At the hospital, I was taking a break and we got to chatting. You're always saying that I need more friends and besides, you keep trying to set me up with creepy guys so I figured I'd avoid that this time and invite Taylor."

Victoria rolled her eyes. "I was just trying to get you out of the hospital."

Dean noticed the rising tension and quickly asked, "Where do you go to school?"

Taylor shifted uncomfortably. "Winslow or at least I did."

He winced as he felt a spike of anger and disgust coming from Taylor. "Sorry…"

"My ex-best friend decided to stab me in the back and emotionally torture me for the last year and some. I told the staff about it, they ignored it. Recent events have shown that there isn't much point in going back as the administration is content to cover for the evil tro."

Victoria asked, "Who the hell does that?"

"Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, and Sophia Hess."

Dean had to resist the urge to stare as he heard Shadow Stalker's civilian name. He felt the mix of frustration and anger coming from Taylor when she mentioned the three names.

Victoria blinked in surprise. "Emma? As in the daughter of Alan Barnes?"

"My ex-friend..." Taylor had to resist the urge to grin savagely as her bugs finished eating through Coil's costume enough that she suddenly had reroll options for Coil. 'Precog, huh, I guess that makes sense. That has to go.' She rerolled his powers then checked his new power. 'That's worse.' She didn't see a point in giving him three timelines rather than two. She rerolled his power again, then again when the next one proved almost as useful. She wasn't going to let him have the power to see what might have been by 'changing' something in the past as that would give him even more options for information gathering than he already had. She continued rerolling his power while he freaked out over his timelines collapsing.

Dean wasn't looking forward to telling Armsmaster about Sophia but maybe this time they'd have enough proof that he'd have to do something about his antisocial teammate. He looked at Victoria. "You know Emma?"

"Her father works with my Mom," Victoria replied.

Taylor sighed. "Sorry to bring it up. What did you think of the movie?"

Amy said, "Harry could have been a bit smarter or they could have buried the locket rather than wear the cursed thing but other than that, it wasn't too bad."

Victoria glanced back and forth between Amy and Taylor. "You can't just…"

"Just drop it Vicky." Amy didn't want to offend her new friend and her time at Winslow had caused her to trigger which meant that it wasn't something they needed to be talking about in a room filled with strangers.

Taylor sighed. "I'd rather talk about the movie. I'm still trying to process everything and the police are still collecting evidence which means I probably shouldn't talk about it all that much."

Dean said, "Ron Weasley was an idiot."

Victoria frowned slightly then decided that she'd just ask Amy about it later. "Neville turned hot."

Taylor listened to everyone banter back and forth as she kept rerolling Coil's power until she came up with a power for dancing that made sure he could hit the right steps. It wasn't perfectly useless but it was horrible enough for now. She selected the dancing power then let her bugs wander off when he wasn't paying attention. "Too much soda. I'll be right back." She kept a couple of bugs under the table so that she could listen in as she made her way to the bathroom to call Lisa.

Amy got up as well. "That's a good idea."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Amy glanced around the empty restaurant bathroom to make sure it was actually empty then asked, "Are you okay?"

Taylor considered saying that she was fine for a couple of seconds then sighed. "Can you promise not to freak out until I can sit down and explain?"

"I'll try."

Taylor used a couple of bugs to watch the hallway outside the bathroom to make sure no one was coming. "I also have bug control powers, including looking through my bugs… one of Coil's safe houses is less than two blocks from here."

"Wait, is that why you suggested we eat here?" Amy asked suspiciously.

"That and I wanted dinner with a friend. I'm working with another cape to take down Coil. I have a unique chance to take him down but in order to do that I either need help or I'd have to go to his safehouse myself and I might hit him with too many bees trying to subdue him. The main problem with going myself is that I don't have a costume for my bug persona yet. It's time sensitive, do you think you can help or talk Glory Girl or Gallant into helping?"

"Cape detector… Fine, I'll tell her I got a call by someone I trust about intel and she can hit the place, if you can direct her where to go. But we're going to have a long chat after this is over."

"Fine…"

Amy sighed. "Okay, explain where it is and how to get there so I can pass the information to Victoria, after that we can direct her via her radio earpiece."

"Thanks."

"That doesn't get you out of explaining."

Taylor explained the plan then sent a text to Tattletale to lay low.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Lisa smiled as she walked over and sat down across from where Taylor was eating a strawberry sundae. "Now that Coil is locked up are you going to explain what's going on?"

Taylor swallowed her bite of ice cream then smiled at Lisa. "I'm sure you have most of it figured out, what do you want to know?"

Lisa asked, "Why take out Coil?"

"Because he's a control freak and can basically 'save scum' until he wins unless someone manages to hit him in both timelines at almost exactly the same time or can disrupt his powers. He'd have came after me before the month was out, a trump that can reroll powers is a very tempting chess piece to have on his team."

"That's what I don't understand, you talk like you know him."

Taylor shrugged. "Would you believe me if I said that I came back through time?"

Lisa winced and rubbed her temples as her power tried to connect the dots to tell her if that was even possible and returned what amounted to a blue screen of death. "Not funny. Now that Coil is dealt with, what do you want with my friends and I?"

"In the short term, I want to set up a meeting with Leet. Past that I need to track the Travelers down so that I can head off an S-class threat before it gets out of control. Once I'm finished doing that, I'm going to be working on cleaning up the Merchants and the ABB and putting in place a team that can keep the Empire in check."

Lisa whispered, "Where are you going to find enough capes to go up against the Empire?"

"Here and there," Taylor replied with amusement.

"How do you know me?" Lisa asked wearily.

"From an alternate future. You became a warlord to help the city because the Protectorate couldn't keep everything together in the wake of Leviathan's attack."

Lisa scowled as her overworked power confirmed that Taylor was telling the truth or at least thought she was. "Say for the moment that I believe you, how did you come back?"

Taylor shrugged. "I'm not sure, the last thing I remember was a cape shooting me then I woke up back in Brockton Bay."

"On the day you triggered?" Lisa asked curiously as her power was trying to fill in pieces..

"Which means I'm either crazy, my power showed me an extremely detailed snapshot of what might have been or I mentally went back in time a couple of years for one reason or another." Taylor shrugged. "Either way, the knowledge is real unless your real name isn't Sarah."

Lisa frowned slightly as she pulled a sticky note out of her pocket and handed it to Taylor. "I'm leaning toward the last two considering some of the information you've already mentioned. Leet's contact information and I've set up a meeting with the Travelers in Boston tomorrow."

"Great, how am I supposed to get to Boston on such short notice?"

Lisa grinned through her headache. "I'll drive, that will give you plenty of time to explain everything about the alternate timeline or vision of the future that you saw."

Taylor figured she could tell her father that she'd be out and be back before he got home for dinner if everything went off without a hitch, if not then she'd call and tell him she was at a friend's place, assuming that Accord didn't pull any of his crap and try to kill her. "Fine."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Lisa grumbled as she ran her fingers over the cheap rubber monster mask that Taylor had insisted she wear. "This is humiliating."

Brian snorted. "It's a generic monster mask, get over it. It's not like we can wear our regular costumes in Boston thanks to you having to get the last word every time you run into Accord or have to deal with him via the boards." He glanced at the unknown cape they'd been hired to guard. "What happens if this goes sideways?"

Taylor really didn't want to have to deal with the OCD villain if she didn't have to. "We're here for a meet and greet with the Travelers, hopefully we don't have to even deal with Accord."

Lisa stopped fidgeting with her mask as they walked into the 'closed' Irish pub that the Travelers were using for their temporary base.

Taylor was just glad that Accord wasn't there. She glanced over the Travelers and noticed that Cody wasn't there which meant that he'd already insulted Accord. She focused halfway between Sundancer and Trickster. "I'm Jester."

Trickster said, "You claimed that you can help Noelle."

"I should be able to, I've helped other case 53's. I should also be able to help Oliver with his power."

Trickster frowned. "How do you know about Oliver?"

Taylor stated, "I have my sources."

"What do you want for your help?"

"Nothing to fix Noelle and a thousand dollars to fix Oliver."

"Why the different price and why so low?" Sundancer asked suspiciously.

"Oliver can live with his power's flaw and Noelle is mutating into an S-Class threat, I'd rather avoid that if I can."

Trickster scowled. "You don't know that."

"Actually, I do. I have the word of a particularly skilled Thinker on that. Thus the price reduction."

Sundancer winced. "If you can help without hurting her, please do."

Oliver said, "I like the skill aspect of my power, just not the part where I'm always changing appearance."

Taylor said, "I should be able to fix that part of your power and leave the skill aspect alone."

"I'd be willing to pay for that," Oliver replied.

Taylor held out her gloved hand. "In that case, step forward and I'll see what I can do."

Trickster winced. "You have to touch someone?"

"It's easier if I do but no, I just have to get close, do you think you can keep Noelle calm enough so that she doesn't try to kill me?"

"Hopefully," Trickster muttered under his breath.

Oliver stepped forward and lightly grabbed Jester's hand. "Now what?"

"Now I reroll your powers," Taylor replied as she examined his powers looking for the broken aspect of his powers. "Okay, no real control mechanism on your power, let's see if I can fix that." She rerolled his 'ideal' body image power and frowned slightly as she got a power that would cause his body to change even faster. She rerolled it again then again as her third attempt wasn't useful either. It wasn't until her fifth attempt at rerolling his power that she got something that might work. "Apparently the fifth time's the charm. That should give you a more active version of your adaption power where you can target someone consciously rather than passively."

"That's it? I'm cured?"

"That's it. I can reroll your power more after I've cured Noelle if you want to try for something better than being able to look at someone and activate your power to alter your appearance at will."

Oliver focused on the three capes and smiled as he felt a mental trigger when he focused on the three strangers. He activated his power and felt his face sort of shift. "Did that work?"

Ballistic glanced away from the window for a second. "You look different but you're always changing appearance."

"We'll see how it goes, thanks," Oliver replied.

Trickster scowled behind his mask. "If you're lying about being able to help Noelle."

"I'm not, just relax," Taylor replied with a touch of annoyance.

"Fine, she's in a warehouse, I'll take you there but it would be better if only Jester came with me. Noelle has been twitchy lately."

Ballistic muttered, "That's an understatement."

Taylor didn't really want to be alone with Trickster but she doubted he'd be a problem at least not before she cured Noelle or if she failed to cure her. Considering she was planning on 'curing' Noelle from a couple of blocks away, she'd have plenty of time to come up with an alternate plan if she proved immune to her powers for some reason. "I don't really trust you Trickster, I trust the rest of your team a lot more."

Sundancer said, "I'll show them where she is."

Trickster scowled at Sundancer. "I'll do it."

Ballistic turned and looked at Trickster. "You're on edge, you'd set her off and that won't help any of us. Maybe she can help or maybe she can't but this is the best chance we've had since we got here."

"Not going to happen," Trickster replied with annoyance.

"If it would make you feel better, I can reroll your power as a proof of concept."

"Yes, that way we'd have proof," Trickster replied firmly.

Taylor felt like rolling her eyes at Trickster, she'd came to help and he was acting like paranoid idiot. She held out her hand. "Sure, let's see how good your luck is today."

Trickster grabbed Taylor's hand. "Do it."

Taylor rerolled his power then checked. "Personal teleportation, five feet range."

Trickster reached out with his power and tried to exchange Sundancer and Oliver and found himself five feet closer to Ballistic. "What the hell?"

"I told you, I reroll powers," Taylor replied.

"Fix it!" Trickster shouted, the lack of his familiar power making him feel strangely naked.

"That was merely proof of concept. If you wish me to keep rerolling until you get something better, you'll have to pay five thousand dollars. Of course, I'll be happy to give it another spin if you'll chill out and let me get on my way."

Trickster grumbled before he walked over and grabbed Taylor's hand. "Fix it."

Taylor rerolled his power and had to work not to start laughing at his new power's drawback. "That should do it, line of sight teleportation up to about a thousand feet, self only."

Trickster teleported across the room. "That's better."

Lisa smirked at the anatomically correct life sized nude salt statue left behind in the exact position Trickster had been standing in when he teleported. "That's new."

Taylor had to resist the urge to laugh at the size of certain parts of the statue. "Now that you know my power is real, can we get on with curing Noelle?"

Ballistic laughed as he looked at the statue. "Sundancer, take Jester to the warehouse and see what she can do for her."

"Sure, follow me, I'll take you to the warehouse." Sundancer headed toward the back exit.

Trickster glared at Jester. "Fix this."

"Consider it insurance, if something happens to me, you'll be stuck like this forever, now stop wasting my time and let's go." Taylor followed Sundancer toward the back of the bar.

Brian said, "We'll stay with Trickster and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Hey!" Trickster shouted.

Ballistic snorted as he stepped in front of Trickster. "Give it a rest. We can sort this out after Noelle is cured."

Trickster scowled at Ballistic. "If anything happens…"

Lisa said, "Relax, she's in good hands."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor glanced at the various street signs as Sundancer drove them toward their destination. She already knew which warehouse held Noelle thanks to her swarm but she wasn't going to mention that part. She sighed in relief as she landed a bug on Noelle and found that she had reroll options. She'd been half afraid that her power wouldn't work on the monstrous cape. She reviewed the collection of broken and not quite broken powers then rerolled her twisted brute power that was driving her insane. "She'll be okay."

Sundancer said, "Thank you, we didn't set out to be villains, taking care of her was hard though that's not really an excuse."

"Hopefully this will let you turn over a new leaf." Taylor rested her head against the headrest of the van as she settled on a strength, regeneration and durability package that didn't include Noelle being a horrible monster. 'That should help. Now for the worst part, not being able to touch people.' She rerolled the touch requirement part of Noelle's powers then quickly rerolled it when it came up ranged and automatic. It took her five tries before she rolled a touch ability that Noelle could activate at will. She focused on the twisted personality part of the clone ability and started rerolling. "I'm going to have to ask that you keep a secret."

Sundancer asked, "What do you mean?"

"Normally I wouldn't admit to this but given the right circumstances, I have a decent range on my power. I'm already fixing Noelle."

"Oh… shit," she said, shuddering as she realized how dangerous the cape with her truly was.

"Yeah, being a trump that can alter powers with a touch is a lot different than being someone that can alter powers at range."

Sundancer shivered. "People would kill to control you, sorry."

"Thus why I'd really rather you not tell anyone including your team."

"Don't worry, I can keep secrets," Sundancer replied.

"Good." Taylor frowned slightly as Noelle's cloning ability rerolled to the ability to make children with brute ratings and altered copies of the original's power. 'Okay, at least the chance for physical deformities is gone.' She focused on the age part of the new power and rerolled it a couple of times to see if she could get older clones. After a couple attempts she started spamming her reroll 'button' trying to get something that wasn't useless.

Sundancer parked the van. "Now what?"

"Now we have a chat with Noelle and hope that things don't end badly," Taylor replied as she looked through the rerolls and picked out the one that created teenage capes. It wasn't ideal but it was better than the one that created octogenarian versions of the person copied without any more knowledge than they started with. She got out of the van and started walking toward the warehouse slowly. "Perhaps you should be the first person she sees, she's still extremely strong."

"That's probably a good idea." Sundancer quickened her pace toward the old warehouse.

Taylor focused on the evil part of the clone's personalities and hit reroll. 'Pyromaniac, no, just not… not happening.' She hit reroll again and looked at the result. 'Thinks Noelle is their mother and wants to... not happening.' She continued hitting reroll as Sundancer slipped into the building. 'Necro… nope.' She firmly hit her reroll on that mental issue.

Taylor was still rerolling the mental aspect when Sundancer walked back out. "Is she calm enough to talk to?"

"She's a bit freaked about being back to normal but she's more lucid than she's been in a while. You should come inside," Sundancer said happily, almost dancing in place.

Taylor took a breath then walked in hoping that Noelle wasn't just playing some twisted game. She didn't think so but the Noelle she remembered had been almost completely gone by the time she'd went on a rampage. She paused in the doorway as she spotted a human looking Noelle sitting on a crate with a blanket wrapped around her waist and legs. "How are you feeling?"

Noelle wiped a couple of happy tears away from her eyes. "Better than I've felt in a long time. Sundancer says I have you to thank for that."

"I'm just happy I could help."

"Can, can I touch people without copying them?"

"You should be able to, I swapped your power to active use rather than automatic. You might want to practice with a small furry animal, but you should be able to get the hang of not copying people."

Noelle snorted. "I'd rather not have crazy clones around."

"I'm in the process of fixing that."

"How?"

"I've narrowed the choices down to teenage clones with exhibionist leanings and minor mental abilities or kleptomaniac teenage clones with minor stranger abilities. The rest of the options that have come up are horrible and less useful by far. Basically, various personality disorders and insanity that I'd rather avoid."

Sundancer said, "Pick the exhibionist leanings, I'd rather not have her spawn a bunch of kender with special abilities to make them better at stealing stuff."

Noelle snickered. "Yeah, no kender."

Taylor selected the exhibionist option which was better than the other options though it had taken more than a few rerolls to drop it to a moderate issue rather than a major issue. "Okay, that should do it. Your new power set includes your old power sense and enhanced senses as well as strength, durability and a crazy amount of regeneration. I swapped your clone ability so that you create brute and tinker enhanced teenage clones that are loyal to you. I might be able to reroll the loyalty part if you want but for now, your power seems stable."

"You're leaving me with the ability to create an army? How much did Trickster agree to pay you?" she asked in shock.

Taylor laughed. "One thousand dollars to fix Oliver's power. Fixing your power before you became an S-Class threat was on the house, though I might have to charge Trickster to fix his power."

"What happened?" Noelle asked.

Sundancer snorted. "Trickster was being an ass and wanted more proof of Jester's ability. Jester re-rolled his power and he ended up with a line of sight teleportation power that leaves a 'naked' lifesize salt statue behind whenever he teleports."

Noelle frowned as she thought about Francis' new power. If the statue had included his costume then it would still be viable but as it was, it basically meant that he had to be extremely careful in how he used his power. "How much are you going to charge to fix his power?"

Taylor shrugged. "That depends."

"On?" Noelle asked wearily.

"In short I'd like to recruit you for a hero team."

"You want an army?" she asked cautiously.

"I want to save the world from the Endbringers and clean up my home town. I know a guy that should be able to build a portal to earth Aleph, so that you can go home for visits," Jester offered as a bribe.

Noelle asked curiously, "How do you know about that?"

"I know a couple of thinkers. Most heroes can't effectively fight the endbringers, we could use the help and it would let you make up for some of the crap your team has done since you got pulled here."

Sundancer said, "I've never really used my ability in public which means that I could swap out my costume and turn hero. Genesis creates temporary minions which by nature are changeable and Trickster already has a different power. How hard would it be to change Ballistic's ability so that he had more control or something?"

"I can probably find something useful for an alternate ability. Do you think Trickster would agree to be a hero?" Taylor asked though she already knew the answer.

Sundancer shook her head. "He'd agree to tap dance through fire if Noelle wanted him to. How are you going to pay for a hero team?"

"I'm planning on robbing various gangs and villains as well as collecting bounties."

Sundancer considered her options. Even if Jester couldn't get them home, she'd rather be a hero than a villain. "I'm in." She turned to look at Noelle. "I'm tired of being a criminal and we found a cure for you so I'm free…"

Noelle said, "I'm still not sure about creating clones, but if you're sure that my ability is safe, I'll join."

"Welcome to the team." Taylor knew there were some details to work out, but having the ability to copy capes was a game changer.


	2. Chapter 2

Alec frowned slightly as he watched Brian and Lisa walk into their base. "What happened? You look like someone kicked your puppy."

Rachel scowled. "You better not have let a puppy get kicked."

Brian said, "No puppies were kicked or harmed on my watch."

Alec raised an eyebrow as he asked, "Then why is your face twisted up like that? I thought you said this was an easy bodyguard gig?"

"It was supposed to be, but Lisa neglected to mention that the client is assembling a hero team."

Alec shrugged. "It's not like we don't have heroes around."

"This is different, Noelle the girl our client recruited creates capes, as in she can copy capes that are loyal to her."

"Fuck me. We have the money from Lung, we could just blow town," Alec suggested.

Lisa shook her head. "We're not blowing town, we're going to turn over a new leaf and become heroes."

Alec stared at Lisa in confusion. "You're going to have to say that again because for a second there I thought you said that we were going to become heroes."

"More like vigilantes. She has a plan to clean up the city by targeting various villains, drug dealers and illegal businesses that will make us a decent chunk of money without all the hassle of trying to avoid the rest of the heroes which is a good thing considering how many heroes she's going to recruit or outright create. You're welcome to take your share of the Lung robbery and run but we're going to make a mint if we stay and help."

"I'm not running, this is my town," Rachel stated firmly.

Alec shrugged. "Assuming that we work with this cape, what would we be doing?"

Lisa smirked. "About the same as we've been doing, attacking the dog fighting rings, drug houses, drug dealers and various villains. In short, helping clean up the city while making money."

"In other words, no hitting civilian targets?" It didn't really matter all that much to him as long as he was making money and could stay the heck away from his family.

"Not without a good reason. In exchange, Jester has agreed to see if she can improve our powers a bit or at least your power and reduce some of the negative side effects of Bitch's power."

Rachel frowned. "I'd still be able to boost my dogs?"

"That wouldn't change, you'd just get better at understanding people. If you don't like the changes she can reverse them easily enough." Lisa still wasn't sure what Taylor's story was because Taylor hadn't been willing to share details with Brian in the car but she knew enough that she was almost certain that Taylor wouldn't sell them down the river, which was more than she could say about Coil.

Alec shrugged. "Okay."

Brian blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"Sure, why not, I've never been a hero before. It might be fun to try out for a couple of weeks. If we're making money great, if not we'll look at other options, agreed?"

"I can agree to that."

Rachel asked, "What about my dogs?"

Lisa said, "One of the things that Jester wants to open is a place for you to train dogs. She's also trying to get your previous crimes squared away so that you don't have to be a villain."

"Okay."

0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor wasn't sure if she should be pleased or not that Emma and Madison had flipped on the administration and Sophia in a heartbeat for a plea deal that kept them out of prison. She'd gotten back from her recruiting trip about five minutes before her father showed up to take her to a hastily scheduled meeting with the superintendent of the school district. Her lawyer had tossed around a lot of numbers that had the man very uncomfortable.

At the end of the meeting, she had a check for two hundred thousand, a document that said her hospital bills from the locker would be covered, an agreement that most of the teachers and administration staff that had turned a blind eye would resign without retirement rather than face legal action and she would agree that the district wasn't responsible for the principal being a corrupt idiot, which was fine considering the woman was facing criminal charges that would make sure she never worked in education again outside of some third world country.

In short, she could probably have gotten more money from the district but her agreement didn't prevent her from suing any of her tormentors in a civil suit, just the school. She was fine with that as the school district needed all the money it had. She wouldn't have even bothered taking the money except it helped to disguise the money she was going to be making as a cape.

Danny asked, "How are you feeling?"

Taylor smiled as she rested her head against the headrest of the car. "Strangely okay. Emma and Madison were expelled and banned from transferring to Arcadia, which means they won't be there to ruin things and Sophia was hauled off to juvie for at least a couple of years." She'd have rather skipped out on school completely and taken her G.E.D. but figured she'd at least try Arcadia first if only to keep her father happy.

"Have you decided if we're going to sue the girls?" Danny asked wearily.

"I think I'd rather just see how much they'll offer to settle out of court."

Danny scowled as he thought about his ex-friend. "You're doing better than I am… I just want to punch Alan in the nose."

"Just let it go and let the lawyer deal with him."

"I'll try." Danny sighed as he pulled up to their house. "I'm still trying to figure out if we won or lost with the deal."

"I have a decent chunk of money and I don't have to go back to Winslow. I'll get started on an early dinner then we can hit the mall for clothes shopping if you're up for it." She grinned at the expression on his face. "Or I can call Amy and she and I can hit the mall."

Danny shook his head as he turned the car off. "Go, have fun, enjoy yourself."

Taylor laughed as she opened the door and headed for the house making a mental note to swing by Faultline's club later to see if she could fix Labyrinth and the rest of the case 53's there.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Leet scowled slightly as they walked toward the nightclub and the line of people waiting to get in. "I'm still not sure this is a good idea."

Uber snorted. "Relax, Faultline gave her word that she'd keep things neutral. It's either this or we use some public bar because Jester said 'no way in hell' to a villain hangout."

"If that's true, why the fuck is she willing to meet us here? Faultline is a villain."

Uber said, "Because they're mercenaries and I suspect that she hired them to make sure we didn't pull any shit, we don't have the best reputations around."

"Right, well fuck it, if this actually works when we can turn that around," Leet replied as they walked past the line of people and down the alley toward the side entrance. He reached up and knocked on the metal door twice.

A large bouncer carefully opened the door holding a shotgun in his other hand. "Giant robots… Right, Leet and Uber."

Uber spoke up before Leet could say something stupid about him not recognizing their Megaman costumes. "Yeah, we have an appointment."

The man moved out of the way. "Through the door into the break room."

Leet opened his mouth to argue then closed his mouth. 'Fuck it, I'll argue about my costume after I get my power fixed.' He walked into the next room and looked at the 'cape' standing next to Faultline. The cape didn't look like much, tossed together clothing designed more to hide his or her identity than any sort of cape theme. Then again, he didn't really blame them either as there were probably hordes of people that would love to get ahold of a trump that could alter powers. "Right, how does this work?"

Jester said, "You pay me 10,000 dollars and I reroll your power."

"I like being a tinker but…"

"But your speciality sucks or rather the drawback sucks, you're basically the prototype tinker. You can make anything once but after that, well you know."

Leet glanced at Faultline then sighed as he realized that Faultline likely already knew about his limitations. "Yes, can you fix it?"

"That depends, have you created a portal device that can open a portal to Earth Aleph?" Jester asked.

"I thought about creating something to steal cable from other worlds but I've never actually built it, why?"

"I need to get some people back home and you're the best when it comes to pulling off impossible stuff unless I want to try to break String Theory out of the Birdcage but she's more than a little nuts."

Faultline snorted. "Fuck that."

Leet shivered at the idea of String Theory only being a little nuts. "The bitch wanted to knock the moon out of orbit, what part of that screams sanity?"

Jester asked, "If I supply the parts, can you build it?"

"If you can stabilize or reset my ability, I'll build you just about anything you want, fuck I'd even go hero… wait, uhm, that's not actually a requirement is it?" Leet asked a touch nervously.

Taylor smiled behind her mask. "I'd rather see you a hero or at least a video game creating rogue than a villain. I mean seriously, you could bring a lot more awareness to old video games by putting on shows or legal events at various locations. You'd make more going legit than you would being villains; send some of your schematics to Dragon, she'd probably pay you."

Uber spoke up, "We'll consider it."

"Excellent, in that case, you'll need to take off a glove or something so I can touch your skin."

"Would I still be a tinker?" Leet asked nervously.

"That's certainly an option. I could also reroll your power completely but I'm not sure what you'd get." Taylor wasn't sure what he'd end up with but figured it was worth a try.

"It's worth a shot," Uber said, echoing her thoughts.

Jester said, "If you don't like what you end up with, I'll restore your current power and you can walk away free and clear."

Leet pulled off his glove and held his hand out. "Fine."

Jester reached out and touched Leet's hand. "Okay, let's see… what the fuck?! Your power hates you, this might be a problem."

Considering the failures and problems that he had with his inventions, he wasn't all that surprised. "I had a feeling."

"Well shit… let's see." Jester rerolled his power completely. "Okay, the ability to use any power once… that's crazy and we're not doing that." She quickly rerolled the ability again then again and again as more random shit kept coming up. "This might take awhile…"

"I'll leave you to it." Faultline announced as she turned and headed into the staff only lounge where the team was having a celebration now that Labyrinth and their case 53's were cured.

Jester said, "Thanks."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor half listened to Victoria's suggestions for what clothes Amy should try while the older cape tried on the dress she was trying to convince Dean to buy for her. She asked in a whisper, "Is she always this bad?"

Dean nodded.

Amy shrugged. "She likes shopping, especially if she can talk someone else into paying."

Taylor winced. "That sounds painful."

Dean smiled slightly as he thought about Victoria modeling the sexy underwear he bought her. "It makes her happy."

"Okay, since Victoria is going to be in here for a while and Taylor looks dead on her feet, we're going to grab some hot chocolate." Amy whispered, "Save me," as she grabbed Taylor's hand.

Dean whispered playfully, "Curse you." then said in a louder voice, "Have fun."

Taylor let Amy pull her to her feet and lead her out of the store.

Amy waited until they were out of the store before she asked, "You're dead on your feet, what happened?"

"Long day, I found out that Emma and Madison flipped on Sophia." Taylor glanced around with her bugs to check for capes and people close enough to eavesdrop. She dropped her voice to a whisper just to be on the safe side, "Then I swung by a club to meet some parahumans and fix some case 53s."

"How much did you make?"

"Thirty grand and a prototype tinker tech device."

Amy blinked and stopped for a second before she started walking again. "Does that mean you're paying for the hot chocolate?"

"I see how it is." Taylor gave her a smile.

"My allowance only goes so far," Amy teased.

"You know, we could probably fix that fairly quickly if you wanted."

"Oh? I'm not sure my mother would approve."

"I know a girl in a wheelchair that needs her back fixed, she should be in town tomorrow, I'll give you a thousand if you'll make a house call…"

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Cape?"

"Someone I'm trying to recruit for my team, yeah."

"I don't suppose I can talk you into fixing my sister's aura?" Amy asked hopefully.

"I thought she liked it?"

"She does but she'd really have an off switch and I don't think Carol would pay for it."

"We'd have to find a place to meet when I'm in costume but sure, I don't have a problem helping you out, we're friends, I'll even wave the fee."

Amy sighed in relief. "That would certainly help with upgrading my underwear collection now that my breasts are larger. Carol has been giving me some weird looks lately, I'd rather not have to ask for money to cover a bunch of replacement bras."

"It's always nice to have some extra spending money." Taylor yawned.

Amy grinned. "Okay, hot chocolate and maybe even some chocolate then it's probably time to get you home."

"It's been a long day," Taylor admitted.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Glory Girl trembled slightly as she held her hand out. Physical threats were easy, she had a forcefield and could tank a hit from anything she'd ever ran into but it was different when someone could change how your powers worked with a touch and a thought. Sure, changing her aura was the point but it was still scary. The fact that Armsmaster had sent the PRT agents out of the testing room before leaving himself didn't fill her with confidence either. There was a remote controlled Dragon Suit, but other than that the room had been cleared other than herself and Jester as a safety measure. "Do it."

Jester slowly reached out and touched Glory Girl's hand. "Just relax and we'll see what we can do."

Armsmaster's voice came over the speakers, "Preferably something other than a master effect."

Jester examined Glory Girl's power and rerolled the awe/fear part of her aura. 'Lust, okay, no… and yuck.' She frowned slightly as she realized that she didn't feel anything for Glory Girl or at least nothing new, she liked her as a friend and Amy's sister but that was it. She studied Glory Girl's glowing face, it was the same but there was something missing, like some intangible piece of her had been cut out. She examined Glory Girl's power and realized that her power had made her immune to Glory Girl's power or rather made sure that Glory Girl's power didn't target her. "Lust, not as helpful as I'd like."

Dean's voice came over the speaker, "She doesn't need any help with that."

Armsmaster said, "Keep trying."

Jester rerolled the aura again then again when she realized that her aura had changed to a rage causing aura. She examined the next aura. "Random… okay, not what I was going for."

Glory Girl complained, "Great, that's worse than I had."

"Don't worry, we'll get there." She rerolled the aura power another twelve times before getting something that should in theory work. "This might work, let's see if we can give you an off switch." She rerolled the activation part of it seven times until she got something that she liked. "Okay, that should do it."

Glory Girl frowned as she tried to figure out how her new power worked. "What did you change?"

"I upgraded your aura so that you can project different emotions and boost the area of your aura at a cost of intensity. For example, you could walk into a crowded mob and project a feeling of calm over the crowd. If they were panicking it would help you take control of the situation but probably wouldn't stop them cold. A bar of people, you'd probably be able to stop a mob cold, of course calm is just one of the many emotions you can project. You also have an off switch on your aura so that you don't have to focus on keeping it contained."

Armsmaster asked, "Could she cause a riot?"

"If she projected rage or various other negative emotions and the people in the crowd were prone to violence then there's a decent chance that she could spark a riot. I suggest she takes some time and practices with Gallant. His ability to sense emotions should let him identify what she's projecting which would give her excellent feedback."

"That could help for crowd control," he admitted. Master heroes were problematic, but as long as it wasn't actual mind control then he could leave it to New Wave to deal with.

"I could keep trying for some other aura power," Jester shrugged, "but that seems like a decent pick and probably the best you're going to get without completely rerolling her powers."

"I'd have been happy with an off switch, this is a lot better than I had," Glory Girl admitted happily.

"If this doesn't work then I can revert your powers back to what they were and see about giving you an off switch for your original aura."

Glory Girl said, "No, I think we're good."

"In that case, you're done." Jester smiled behind her mask.

Armsmaster asked, "Do you have time to help Clockblocker with his power?"

Jester frowned slightly as she considered the dangerous alternate powers he might end up with if she just rerolled his ability and decided that it wasn't worth the risk if she had to be touching him. That meant that she'd just have to reroll the duration aspect of his power after warning him not to use his power while he was touching her. "I'll take a look, I should be able to fix the random duration part of his power without too much trouble."

"Good, he'd be more useful if he could control it or at least knew how long his power was going to last."

"I'll see what I can do." Jester smiled behind her mask as she thought about the other version of Clockblocker and what he'd think if he was here.

Glory Girl asked, "Am I good to go?"

Armsmaster said, "I want you to spend at least a couple of hours working on your new powers with Gallant." While he didn't have any actual authority over Glory Girl as she wasn't a Ward, he wasn't willing to let her run around without at least some training in how to use her new ability.

"Cool."

Jester wondered how much Brandish would scream about Glory Girl letting someone alter her powers. 'At least I can tell Amy that her sister's aura was dealt with and get Genesis' back healed. Lisa should have Coil's finances and men dealt with, either hired or paid off which means we should be able to use his base.'

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Kaiser scowled as he finished looking over the files that his spy in the PRT had dropped off. "We need to get control of this new Trump."

Hookwolf snorted. "I'm fine with my powers just like they are."

Kaiser glanced around the small meeting room. "I'm fine with my powers as they are as well but we can't allow heroes to have access to someone that can remove flaws and streamline their abilities."

Victor spoke up, "From what I've heard, Faultline paid Jester to cure several of her case 53s which means that Jester is working both sides."

Othala frowned. "As much as it would benefit us to have Jester working for us, we don't know enough about them. They could be black or asian or even red or blue for all we know."

Krieg said, "If he or she can permanently alter any cape that they touch, going after them is going to be problematic."

Kaiser smiled. "It's a simple matter to have some non capes capture Jester."

"Or we could just hire Jester through Faultline if we need his or her services."

Kaiser frowned as he looked at Krieg. "Are you getting cold feet?"

"This is a cape that can alter powers, cure case 53s and generally twist abilities from what I've heard, this isn't like grabbing some minor league tinker, this would be like stealing the Hope Diamond or one of the Triumvirate's children… you're inviting a firestorm. Besides, you're assuming that Jester doesn't have bodyguards. Capes with abilities that she's tweaked and modified until they have top tier abilities."

Victor nodded. "I have to agree with Krieg on this one, you're looking at a hell of alot of fallout from this. I mean sure, I can make it happen but it's going to cause problems."

Kaiser frowned slightly. "Put in a call to Faultline and see if we can hire Jester's services. If we can't then forcing her out of the city might be our only option."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Jester sighed as a familiar well dressed blond man approached her as she was leaving the PRT building. "I was hoping to avoid this."

Number Man frowned slightly. "You know who I am?"

"It's fifty thousand a villain and a hundred thousand if you want me to ask no questions. If you're not interested then please excuse me, I have places to be." She took a couple of steps so that they weren't blocking the doors.

"That seems rather steep considering you're charging the Protectorate a mere five thousand a cape."

Jester shrugged. "I offer heroes a discount because they're heroes. Villains typically speaking have more money or they're doing it wrong. Still, money shouldn't be an issue for you."

"There is still the issue of you knowing things you shouldn't," he pointed out.

"Let's just leave it at I have contacts in interesting places. If you're interested, you'll guarantee the villain's behavior and they will show up in street clothes and a mask such that I can't link them to any known villains because rerolling a villain's powers is sort of a grey area legally. If that doesn't work for you then good luck and all that because I'd rather avoid complications."

Number Man ran the numbers in his head. "Seventy five thousand and each cape will be dropped off unconscious with a video clip of them agreeing to have their power rerolled and what they're looking for, is that acceptable?"

"I will be providing guards but I don't see a problem with that arrangement. Take into consideration that I can restore previous power sets and that I'm going to be rather angry if the people I'm tweaking don't want their powers altered. I do the job; I get paid, as long as that works, I'll be happy."

The Number Man ran the numbers and decided that she was telling the truth. "How much control do you have over what powers they receive?"

"Powers are based around themes. I can reroll a cape's entire power set or just parts of it. I can keep rerolling until I get what I want or at least close in most cases. In other words, I can help get the most out of powers or the least I can if I so choose to."

"I think we can work with that."

"Excellent, pleasure doing business with you. Is there anything else?"

"I think that covers it, I'll give you a call tomorrow if that works?"

"That works." Jester replied then turned and walked off keeping an eye on him with her various bugs.

Number Man frowned as he watched the trump walk off. 'That went better than I was expecting considering Contessa straight out refused to come.'

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Alexandria looked up as the Number Man walked into the meeting room. "Were you able to acquire Jester's services?"

Number Man took his seat. "Seventy five thousand a cape with the cape in question stating what general powers they were looking for on a video clip as well as their agreement."

"Seventy Five thousand?" Eidolon asked in disbelief.

"Jester's opening bid was 100,000 for no questions asked as long as they were willing and had nothing that could identify them as villains."

Contessa said, "This was the best we could hope for, if we'd sent anyone else they would have either died or been ignored."

Eidolon scowled. "You're saying that I couldn't win?"

"I just know that we would have failed and that I would have died. This was the best option."

Doctor Mother asked, "What happens if we find out who Jester is out of costume?"

Contessa shook her head. "That path leads to failure."

Number Man said, "I ran the numbers, rerolling abilities isn't Jester's only power. I'm not sure what Jester's other power is, but Jester knew who I was and unless I miss my guess who I used to be and wasn't afraid, which says a lot about Jester's ability or lack of sanity. Either way, we can sneak some of the capes in via the Protectorate which means that we'll be paying $5,000 a cape rather than the $75,000 villain rate."

Eidolon asked, "Could Jester fix my powers?"

Number Man said, "I doubt it."

Contessa frowned slightly. "You're a blind spot."

Alexandria asked, "Could she improve my powers?"

"Only by a small amount but she can alter your power so that you can get your eye healed then restore your powers."

"I might have to pay Brockton Bay a visit."

Eidolon scowled. "How many of the prisoners are we going to get altered?"

The Number man said, "We should get all of them rerolled. I know that several of them might be useful against Scion but they'd be more useful if they don't know anything about us and thus can't carry a grudge. With Jester's ability we can use less of the stabilizing formula which will lead to messed up yet stronger capes."

Doctor Mother asked, "That brings up a question, how does Jester know about you?"

"I'm not sure, the numbers indicate that she does. Either way, that's less important than what this represents. We can start recruiting volunteers and using some of our more risky formulas."

Eidolon asked, "How trustworthy is Jester?"

"Jester said, 'I do the job, I get paid. As long as we don't try to screw Jester over, I don't think we'll have a problem."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor glared at the Empire message on her tinkertech phone that Leet had rigged up with his 'new' power. His new power was one of the most broken she'd seen short of Eidolon as it let him temporarily copy the powers of anyone other than her in visual range or use one power at a time which included 'tinker yes' for some reason, probably a holdover from his old power. Sure he could only copy someone else for a random amount of time between five and a half minutes to fifteen minutes with a recharge of double that, but it was still worlds better than his old power considering he could recreate designs with his new power and still build anything under the sun. "Right, yeah, I'm not rerolling Empire capes or at least not to their benefit."

"I have a feeling they're not going to take no for an answer," Amy muttered as she glared at the workbench where a masked teenager and a twenty something cape where working on some project. She still wasn't sure about putting on a costume and joining Taylor in what was basically a repurposed villain's lair. It would have been slightly better if she wasn't fairly sure that the twenty something year old Copycat was actually a rebranded Leet. She glanced over at Skill Monkey who she was one hundred and nine percent sure was Uber and sighed. She wasn't sure who the teenage tinker was beyond his 'hero' name Chariot but he looked a little shifty.

Lisa adjusted her full mask, she preferred her Tattletale mask but this was a gathering of heroes or at least villains pretending to be heroes and a healer that looked more like a villain than the rest of them combined in her Sith robes and black theater mask. She was going to have to give Amy, or the Mentalist as she was calling herself, some pointers at some point on keeping a secret identity and get Leet to make her a voice changer. She glanced over at Multiplier who was wearing a blank mask as she hadn't had the time to pick a theme yet. "Do you feel up to providing security for Jester?"

Noelle turned to look at Insight. "That's fine, I should be able to deal with most of the Empire capes."

Mentalist asked, "What are your powers?"

"I'm a high level brute…"

Trickster piped up, "Multiplier can also make loyal minions by touching people, including capes. She rocks!"

Multiplier glared at Trickster for spilling details that she'd rather not have people know right off the bat. "Don't worry, I'm not going to copy my teammates without permission unless things get life or death."

Mentalist coughed. "Permanently?"

"So far as I know, yeah. Do you need someone copied?" Multiplier asked wearily. She still wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of copying people, but Jester had rerolled the loyalty bit of her power so that she could make them loyal to a second person if she was also touching them which meant that it wasn't just up to her to keep the copies in line. Of course, they hadn't actually tested this on a person yet, but she trusted Jester's power to tell her the details considering the details it gave her about everyone else's powers.

Mentalist blushed behind her mask as her traitorous mind conjured an image of a clone of her sister in a Princess Leia slave girl outfit, complete with chains. "Ah, not currently."

Alec smirked as he mentally went through his list of hot superheroes and villains. "I can think of a couple of girls…" he trailed off as Grue tossed a ball of silenced darkness at his head. 'Damned rerolled powers.' He stepped out of the globe of darkness. "Right, so, joking aside, I have a feeling that we're going to have to deal with the Empire and the Merchants wanting Jester. The ABB doesn't really have enough capes to care and Lung is Lung, his power is scary enough and I doubt that he'd trust Jester to give him something better."

Jester grinned behind her mask. "Considering I'd give him the worst power I could, that's probably a safe bet on his part."

Ballistic frowned. "While I agree the Merchants might be a problem down the road, I'm more worried about the Empire and out of town capes. Accord isn't that far and a trump that alters powers sounds like someone that he'd love to have working for him by hook or by crook. I think the best option might be to name an over the top price for the Empire. They'll either pay us a crazy amount of money or they'll show up and cause problems at which point we can haul them into the PRT."

Mentalist asked, "What do you want the rest of us to do?"

Jester gestured around the group. "Considering your power lets you cure mental issues and derangements with a character interface, I'd appreciate it if you checked over everyone's mental health and cured anyone that wants to be cured while I call the Empire." She glanced at Alec and Noelle then looked back over at Amy. She doubted that Alec would want his mental issues cured even if Amy could cure them. She had a feeling that Noelle wouldn't mind some of her mental issues gone and Rachel would certainly benefit from having her issues cured though she wasn't sure if she'd admit it. "I think I'll take Ballistic's suggestion and name an over the top price. If they don't want to pay, we start planning on our offense against the Merchants."

Trickster asked, "Why are we going up against a bunch of scrubs?"

"Because the ABB has Lung and I want to bleed them dry and scout out a location where we can take him down without casualties. The Empire has a decent amount of support in their territory, it's going to take a while to take them down. Besides, as much as I personally detest their group, they have a large number of capes some of which we have to leave in play for Endbringer battles. Kaiser, Othala and Rune can contribute a fair amount in any fight and Alabaster can't get be killed considering he'd just reset which makes him an excellent distraction and meat shield."

Rachel asked with more than a touch of hostility in her voice, "And Hookwolf's dog fighting rings?"

"I'm planning on hitting them as soon as we can find them." Taylor had no use for Hookwolf even if he was durable enough to fight endbringers he wasn't even close to strong enough to fight Scion which meant that he could rot in the Birdcage for all she cared.

"Good."

Jester pulled out her phone and walked toward the hallway to call the Empire.

Trickster looked over at the two Tinkers and asked, "How long is it going to take to get us home?"

Copycat looked up from the device he was working on. "The first step is to get the parts, then build it. After that, I want to create a device that lets us play Earth Aleph multiplayer games. That way you can head back and visit your friends whenever you want and still be part of the team."

Multiplier grinned. "I'm looking forward to getting to play again and going home sounds nice."

Mentalist rolled her eyes, 'Right, not Leet my ass. Still, if we can get him to go rogue that will keep him from doing stupid crap so I guess it's worth it.' She still wasn't sure about making mental changes to people, but her 'new' if temporary power that Taylor had rerolled for her had a computer interface and an accept button so she couldn't really screw up the changes and risk lobotomizing someone which was way better than her old power so her rule against working on brains didn't really apply. 'Hopefully, I can cure Mark's depression and possibly the stick up Carol's ass, yeah that last one is probably impossible.'

She focused on Leet. 'Huh, he's actually moderately sane other than a moderate obsession with computer games.' She doubted he'd let her fix his 'obsession' and really, it wasn't like it was a bad thing to have hobbies.

She turned her attention to Alec and looked at his mental issues. 'Mild sociopathic tendencies (environmental), moderate fear of his father and he's a smart ass which I'm not touching as I'm not sure what 'fixing' that would do. Okay, if I was going to do anything, I'd drop the sociopathic tendencies down a bit, though I should probably ask Insight what the deal with his father is considering a moderate fear of a family member was a bit over the top if Leet's obsession with video games was only moderate.'

She glanced back at Copycat who had went back to working on some tinkertech device. 'I should probably check if I'm immune to my own power if he's using it.' She glanced over at Rachel who had a few mental issues then over at Trickster who had obsessive tendencies that should be addressed as well as a red flashing label that read Simurgh victim. 'Fuck!' Amy turned her attention to the rest of the Travelers and found that they were all Simurgh victims. 'Shit, shit… fuck, okay… think, they haven't killed us yet… okay, rules or not that needs to be fixed.' She reached out and selected Trickster's Simurgh victim quality and deleted it then hit accept.

Trickster shivered. "Did anyone else just feel like they ate too much ice cream all at once?"

Mentalist turned and scanned Noelle. 'Chiraptophobia, fear of being touched, Anorexia and Simurgh victim, yeah, none of that. Sorry, but all of those suck.' She deleted the three traits then hit accept and moved on to Sundancer even as Noelle winced.

Noelle rubbed her temples. "You're not the only one."

Mentalist selected the Simurgh victim trait for Sundancer and deleted it then fixed the same trait for Oliver and Ballistic. "Sorry, that would be my fault. You were Simurghed and I was fixing it."

Noelle turned and looked at Mentalist. "Shit…"

Trickster scowled at Mentalist. "And you didn't tell us first?"

Mentalist scowled at Trickster. "Fuck that, you were Simurghed, you would have argued and probably fled."

Noelle covered Trickster's mouth with her hand. "Drop it, we've worried about her influence for months, this gives us peace of mind, I would have done the same thing. What else did you change?"

Mentalist sighed. "Two mental issues from you but everyone else is more or less fine."

"Eating disorder and fear of touching people?"

"Sorry… I sort of panicked when I saw Simurghed in large red letters," Mentalist admitted.

Noelle glanced over at Insight. "Is she telling the truth?"

Insight studied Mentalist for a couple of seconds. "Yes, I think we need to sit down and look at what issues she can deal with though, informed consent and all that, I like being a smart ass."

Alec said, "Same."

Ballistic asked, "Do I have any mental issues?"

"Nothing that a couple of hours of therapy won't address," Mentalist admitted.

Ballistic took stock of his mental faculties and decided that he'd do the same thing if he could fix a Simurgh victim. Considering they'd lived through a Simurgh attack it was much more likely that the Mentalist was telling the truth about being a Simurgh victim than it was that she was actually the Simurgh victim or something strange. While it could be a ploy, Jester had fixed Noelle and had no reason to lie and had vouched for Mentalist and explained her powers. If she'd screwed them, there wasn't much they could do about it so he was choosing to just be happy about being cured and let it go. "Fine, we lived through a Simurgh attack so it's certainly possible that she messed with us."

"In that case," Insight turned and looked at Rachel, "let's start with Rachel, then we'll check Alec then the rest of the group."

Alec rolled his eyes but actually managed to keep his mouth shut for once. He was a little curious what her power would say and if there was anything he'd actually want to change. He doubted it but it was worth checking if only for laughs. "Sure, no worries."

Mentalist turned her attention to Rachel. "Okay, Jester fixed a lot of problems with your power but there are some left over issues… I can fix them if you want?"

"Will I be worse at understanding my dogs?"

"No. This should give you the best of both worlds."

Rachel shifted uncomfortably. "Okay."

"Okay?" Mentalist asked in surprise.

Rachel looked at Lisa then back at Mentalist. "Insight said that you're trustworthy. I trust her. Fix what you can."

Mentalist explained what she was doing as she worked through Rachel's collection of issues that stemmed from the foster system and her power screwing her over. She had a feeling that Rachel would still do well with therapy but considering her life, it was amazing that she wasn't worse than she was.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Emily Piggot stared at Armsmaster in disbelief. "So you're telling me that a group of 'heroes' walked into Merchant territory, announced that they could cure drug addiction then proceeded to cure everyone that wanted a new life until the Merchant Capes showed up, at which point the Merchant capes were quickly defeated by Hellhound's dogs and a couple of unknown capes?"

Armsmaster sighed. "Yes."

"Why isn't she in custody?"

"Because there were ten other capes there besides Hellhound's rather large and dangerous dogs and they asked 'politely' that we leave her alone until the lawyer gets done arguing her case."

"They're harboring a villain."

Armsmaster snorted. "They're harboring a girl that triggered because some sociopath decided that she'd punish a child by drowning her puppy. If I'd been there, I very well might have stabbed the idiot myself. As Hellhound doesn't have a master ability, it's manslaughter at best. Now take into consideration that the idiot trying to kill her only friend was her foster parent and you have a media shitstorm. Personally, I'm all for giving the group time to straighten certain problems out then hiring her to train all of the police dogs in the area or seeing what type of community service deal we can make. Besides, they managed to take down Skidmark, Squealer, Trainwreck and Mush in under a minute."

Emily asked, "What about their Master?"

"She can cure mental issues, she had contracts drawn up, everyone signed on the dotted line. I looked at one of the contracts, it looks legal. The legal team could tell you more, but from what I can tell, they broke no laws."

"They stopped you from taking Hellhound."

"Actually they didn't. They simply asked that I leave her to their care and that they have a lawyer working on the charges against her. Considering Mentalist can cure mental illness and hangups, I decided that we can always catch Hellhound later."

"You still let a villain escape," Emily complained.

"The group took out the Merchant leadership and cured a bunch of people of various addictions."

"So they claim, how do you know that you weren't mastered?"

"Her power comes with an icy feeling you get similar to eating too much ice cream, I didn't experience anything close to that nor did any of the PRT agents. Hellhound is rather small potatoes compared to taking down the Merchant capes or making friends with a cape that can fix mental issues. I'm willing to give it a couple of days to see how the suits work out the legal issues."

"She's committed crimes since her trigger event."

"Which can be hashed out in a court of law by a lawyer. Her dogs can toss cars around. I wasn't willing to risk a confrontation at least until I got the Merchant capes locked up. Now if you'll excuse me, I want to question the Merchants." Armsmaster turned and left.

Emily scowled at Armsmaster as he left without 'permission'.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor opened her front door and looked at a red faced Amy then glanced down at the shopping bag in her hands with two containers of ice cream. "What happened?"

Amy sighed as she walked into Taylor's house and flopped down on the couch. "Victoria's aura…"

"Is gone, and you?" Taylor really didn't want to touch this topic with a ten foot pole but she was trying to be a friend. She closed the door and stood there not sure if she was hoping that Amy would continue or drop the subject.

"I don't…" Amy set the bag on the end table as she whispered, "I don't like her anymore..."

"She's still your sister."

"I mean I like her, I'm just not… she's attractive but, that spark that… I walked into the house and I almost didn't recognize her… it was just gone, nothing..."

Taylor sighed. 'Well shit… there goes the 'hope' that Glory's Aura wasn't screwing her up.' She asked, "What did you do?"

Amy stared at her ice cream not meeting Taylor's gaze. "I… I cured Mark, checked Carol and left once I realized that she hates me. I mean, I knew she disliked me… but she hates me, clear as day to Mentalist's power." She sniffled. "I can't go back to that…"

Taylor had a feeling that Amy was actually just seeing Carol's hate of Marquis but didn't want to open that bag of worms either. "Did you say anything on the way out?"

"Just that I was going to a friend's," Amy admitted.

"I'll get the spoons." Taylor walked into the kitchen and grabbed two spoons out of the silverware drawer.

"I'm sorry…" Amy trailed off not sure what she was supposed to say about sharing her personal baggage with her new friend.

Taylor walked back in and sat next to Amy on the couch. "You don't have to be sorry, constant exposure to a master's aura would screw anyone up."

"Pathetic, I know… mind fucked by my sister's aura."

"I guess it could be worse at least she doesn't know, right?"

Amy shook her head vigorously. "That would be worse…"

"Do you still think supermodels are attractive?"

Amy snorted. "You mean, am I still gay?"

Taylor held up her hands. "You don't have to answer that."

Amy thought about the attractive woman at the corner mart where she'd bought the ice cream with a smile. "Yes, is that a problem?"

"Nope, though if you strip and start making out with cute girls on the table, I'm going to grab my camera."

Amy sputtered, "What?!"

Taylor grinned. "Come on, you're a world famous cape, think of the money the paparazzi would give for that shot. Okay, I wouldn't really do that, but it got you laughing."

Amy blushed as she grabbed the spoon from Taylor and dug into her carton of Rocky Road ice cream. She pouted, "You're evil."

"I know," Taylor admitted as she opened her ice cream container and dug in.

After a minute of two of quiet, Amy asked in a voice barely above a whisper, "You know the worst part?"

Taylor looked up from her ice cream container. "Oh?"

"When Multiplier asked if we wanted anyone copied…" Amy trailed off not wanting to admit that she'd thought about having her sister copied.

"You thought about your sister?" Taylor guessed.

"How?"

"Lucky guess. To be fair, I thought about copying various capes, not that I'd copy someone just because they're cute, well probably not."

"That's not even close," Amy replied.

Taylor sighed. "A small part of me thought about having her copy a loyal version of Emma, how fucked up is that?"

Amy shook her head. "It's a pity that my derangement curing ability doesn't work on either of us."

Taylor sighed. "It would be nice, Copycat, can't copy me, you can't cure me but you can still alter my body with your original powers, I think my power builds in some safeguards."

"Probably for the best, I'm not real comfortable with Leet having any of my powers, you know they're villains right?"

"Leet?" Taylor asked innocently.

"Fine, Copycat." She rolled her eyes.

"Technically, I'm not sure Chariot has done anything illegal yet. I'm not sure he hasn't either…"

"Why work with villains?"

"Because we need their help and they know the game. Rachel was in a bad place… Insight was recruited by Coil at gunpoint and on the run from parents that wanted to abuse her gift. I'm sure you can relate."

Amy winced. "That was low."

"It's the truth. Everyone has a story, they might have made bad choices but sometimes there aren't any good choices. Take Rachel for example, try explaining to a jury of normal people that her power doesn't let her control the dogs. The prosecuting attorney would spin maybes and ifs until the jury was convinced that she could command any dog to go nuts. Once that happens, they'd toss her in jail or send her off to prison so she ran. Grue has a younger sister that he wants to take care of, he needed money for a legal battle against his mother."

"There are other options than being a criminal."

Taylor sighed. "For someone with no college degree, that controls darkness? Sure, he could have gotten a job as a bodyguard but there aren't all that many people in town that need them full time and his sister is in town. A better option would be to get hired as a cape that has a power that can eat radiation but that would also take him away from home a lot. Then there is Coil, if he wanted to recruit people, he could just keep trying until he found something that worked."

Amy rolled the idea around in her head as she worked on eating her ice cream. "And Leet and Uber?"

"You mean Copycat and Skill Monkey?"

"Obviously."

"Copycat can make anything and Skill Monkey can give other people skills at professional quality for an hour and a half in addition to being able to use any two skills he needs for a given task. Sure, you need to practice the skills if you want to keep them but he gave Rachel speed reading, as long as she works on it, she'll keep the ability to read. That's huge, can you imagine him in a classroom? He taps everyone that enters his lectures on the hand as they come in then uses his power to become the best at chemistry and teaching and suddenly you have an entire class that are soaking up chemistry like sponges. Then he turns around and does the same thing for whatever subject you want to learn."

Amy sighed, "You're going to copy him aren't you?"

"He's a good test case, his power is nice but isn't extremely dangerous in the short term."

"Okay, sure, we'll just pretend that he's not Uber and that Copycat isn't Leet."

Taylor smiled at Amy. "Now you're getting it."

"Fine, so... Alec's father?"

"Isn't a good person by any stretch of the imagination," Taylor replied with a shiver as she thought about Heartbreaker.

"Alec just said that he was a villain." She took another bite of ice cream.

Taylor finished her bite slowly as she gathered her thoughts. "Not my secret to tell, let's just say that his childhood makes your homelife look deliriously happy and leave it there."

"I'm still not sure about hiring villains."

"Ex-villains that are willing to help clean up the city."

Amy shook her head. "I can picture the lecture Carol would give me if she knew I was working with villains."

"Do you actually care what she thinks?" Taylor asked curiously.

"Of cour…" Amy trailed off as she realized that she really didn't care what Carol thought anymore, "actually no. Now that I think about it, not particularly. I'd have been better off just about anywhere else. I mean the only good thing about living there was Victoria and sometimes Mark when he wasn't completely depressed. Still, they're my legal guardians, what am I going to do?"

"You're welcome to stay here at least for a couple of days, I could hide you in my closet or you can crash at the base."

"Money? I have some but..."

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Let's ignore the fact that I'm going to make at least a few hundred thousand off a deal in the next couple of days as well as the work the Protectorate has lined up and look at your ability. You can heal people, you can do plastic surgery in seconds that is completely organic and you can reduce a person's age. Besides, you're going to get a split of the bounty from the Merchant capes we grabbed. It's not a great deal but it should be enough to hold you over until we figure something out. Besides, all you have to do is tell the hospital to pay you rather than New Wave and you'll have a decent to insane paycheck every couple of weeks."

"I can't see her letting me live by myself, it would make me happy," Amy admitted sadly.

"I'll talk to Insight about it. I'm sure she can figure out a way to spin things to get her to back off."

"Do you think she could figure out who my real parents were?" Amy asked hopefully.

"I'm not sure she'll find anything but it doesn't hurt to ask." Taylor finished the rest of the thought in her head, 'much.'

"Do you think your dad will mind if I crash here, do you?"

"I don't think he'll complain. I'll grab some DVDs."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Amy shook her head despite Taylor's puppy dog eyes. "No, I'm not making bioluminescent tarantulas."

"Oh come on, it would be great especially if I could control the glow and color. Can you make them change color like certain types of squid?"

"If by great you mean scary as hell, I agree. I'm sure there are rules against making abominations…"

"Please?" Taylor pouted.

"And what happens when they escape?" Amy asked nervously.

"You could always give them no mating instinct."

Amy rubbed her face. "I can't believe I'm considering this."

"Just think of the fun that we'd have scaring the various gangs and if I can reroll Rachel's power to work on Spiders…"

Amy stared at Taylor in horror. "Fuck no, no, not happening, no way in hell!"

"Too much?" Taylor asked innocently.

"Yes!"

"But it would be awesome against Endbringers, I mean a whole army of enhanced spiders with tinkertech weapons strapped to their backs, what could possibly go wrong?" Taylor asked with amusement.

Amy shook her head. "No more alien bug movies for you, ever."

"Okay, if I promise not to reroll Rachel's power to work on bugs can I have my glow in the dark spiders?"

"What do I get out of it?" Amy asked curiously.

"What do you want?"

"A catgirl," Amy replied jokingly then stuck her tongue out at Taylor.

"Multiplier is the cape that copies people and you're the one that modifies people."

Amy blinked in surprise. "Oh, on second thought, don't tempt me, I'm sure there are rules against creating catgirls."

Taylor shrugged. "We can always ask Lisa to look into it. The more questionable part is copying people, cosmetic surgery isn't illegal."

"Point, so do you actually have any tarantulas?"

"No, but I'm sure we can find one at the pet store." Taylor figured that Noelle could copy the final product a bunch of times which might give her regenerating stranger enhanced glow in the dark spiders which would be awesome and scare the hell out of Clockblocker which was always fun. "Okay, let's see what we can find."

"If anyone asks, I didn't help. Speaking of, I need my power swapped so I can alter my appearance."

"Just wear your costume, I'm wearing my Skitter costume."

Amy sighed. "Fine, when this blows up in your face, don't look at me. It might take a while to create more than a handful."

Taylor pulled Amy into a hug. "Thanks!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Clockblocker stared in horror at the monitor showing a glowing multicolored wave of spiders pouring out of an alley and over a familiar cape. "Fuck me, is that Victor?"

Vista grinned as she watched the spiders quickly cocoon the frantically struggling villain. "Yeah, it's pretty cool."

Gallant frowned as he felt a spike of fear from Clockblocker as a woman in a dark costume walked through the swarm of spiders like they weren't even there. "What's the matter? Do you know her?"

"I hope not…" his voice shook a touch as he finished his question, "did you happen to catch her name?"

Aegis spoke up, "She said her name was Skitter and that she was a hero. Why, do you know something?"

Clockblocker twitched as memories flashed through his head of swarms of bugs and things crawling where they had no business crawling. "Bug control?"

"That's what she said, she didn't say how she got her neat glowing spiders though," Kid Win complained.

"Let's hope she stays a hero." Clockblocker wondered why Skitter was targeting the Empire at this point in time considering the last time around she wasn't active yet. "What happened with Victor?"

"Skitter said her spiders were hungry." Kid Win snickered at the horrified look on Clockblocker's face.

Aegis snorted. "We got a call about trouble elsewhere so we left Victor with Skitter after calling Armsmaster and the PRT."

Clockblocker asked, 'You left him with an unknown cape?"

"She's the one that took him down and we were needed elsewhere. Don't worry, Armsmaster wasn't amused about us leaving him with an unknown cape either but it worked out, he arrived safely enough."

"My version sounded better," Kid Win complained.

Gallant looked at Clockblocker and asked, "Are you okay? You've been on edge for a week and now this."

"I'm fine. I just need some air." Clockblocker turned and headed toward the door.

"I'm an empath, I can tell when you're lying."

"Let it go, just give me a day or two to check things out." Clockblocker headed toward the elevator. He wasn't sure what the hell was going on but the last thing he remembered before waking up a week ago in the past was the fight with Scion. It hadn't taken all that long for him to start putting the pieces together and realize that he'd gotten extra memories at the same time as Skitter triggered thus everything was her fault or at least connected.

'Maybe she won't kill me if I just call her, if I call her on my PRT phone, it will leave a record and she might kill me… or she'll have no idea who I am… yeah, I'm not that lucky. Okay, there's no proof that she's the same Skitter, there is no proof that she's not either." He took a deep breath as he pushed the elevator button. 'Okay, she started off as a hero and Sophia is gone, right, there's no chance that something weird isn't going on with that. But that means she's back but from when, Warlord Skitter, Ward Weaver, Khepri Skitter… Okay, who else came back, shit. Okay, I'll call, what's the worst that happens? I'll get eaten by spiders.' He stepped into the elevator and muttered, "Fucking spiders."


	3. Chapter 3

Doctor Mother turned as the Number Man walked into the conference room. "How did it go?"

Number Man smiled slightly. "Professional. She also had a healer and a mind healer with her which meant that they were able to restore everyone to peak condition and cure some mental issues in several of the capes I brought. While we don't have anyone that can stand toe to toe against Scion we're closer. In short, I recommend not pissing them off."

"No chance of them joining us?"

"I don't think it matters. We have a deal, they do the job and they ask no questions as long as they get paid. They asked no questions and Jester was willing to take suggestions on what powers to leave people with. I don't see a reason to rock the boat at this point in time."

Eidolon asked, "They weren't curious?"

"As Jester said, I do the job and I get paid. In this case not being curious was part of the job. I paid them in cash and gave them a bonus for healing everyone. If we need more capes cured, they'll do it and not ask questions, they're refreshingly mercenary in that respect."

"They have a healer?"

"Yes, a man, no real idea how old or what race other than adult or late teens as they're all using voice changers. He's not the fastest healer I've seen but he got the job done."

Doctor Mother said, "And their mental healer?"

"A woman, basically she can look at a person and see mental issues and then cure them at range."

Eidolon said, "I've never heard of anyone being able to cure mental issues like that."

Number Man replied, "Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean it can't be done. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to sort through the rest of the capes we have locked up. Besides, there's no telling how many times Jester re-rolled her power to allow her to do so."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Dennis reached up to knock on the door then dropped his arm. "Fuck, get it together." He brought his hand up and knocked on the Hebert's front door. He heard a familiar voice inside call out, "I got it." then nothing for several seconds then the door opened revealing a familiar face.

Taylor blinked as she saw who was standing on her front porch. "Can… can I help you?"

Dennis noticed the hesitation and recognition on her face and decided to hell with playing it safe. "Skitter?"

Taylor raised her eyebrows. "Cockblocker?"

He snorted. "So..."

"Do you want to come in?" She gestured for him to come inside.

Dennis asked half seriously and half not, "Are you going to have your spiders eat me?"

"I wasn't planning on it."

Amy looked up as Dennis stepped into Taylor's house and looked around. "Dennis?"

Dennis stopped and stared at Amy who was curled up on the couch with a large fluffy blanket over her. "Amy? Did you make those abominations for Skitter?"

"Ah?…" Amy trailed off not sure why Dennis was there.

Taylor laughed as she shut the door. "She created the prototype and then I had another friend copy them."

"Shit, you're trying to give me nightmares aren't you?" Dennis shivered.

Amy frowned. "I didn't know you were afraid of spiders."

"I'm not," he shivered, "just Skitter controlled glowing spiders of doom."

"Spiders of Doom? I might have to steal that," Taylor replied with amusement.

Amy glanced back at forth between Dennis and Taylor. "I didn't know you'd even met."

Ah…" He trailed off as he noticed the confusion on Amy's face, "she does know right?"

Taylor asked, "That I'm Skitter? She didn't until you told her."

"Shit," He sighed in relief as he realized that both Amy and Taylor were grinning. "Okay, I guess I deserved that."

Amy asked, "Why are you even here?"

"I'm not sure, I think I'm going nuts."

"Are you remembering things that haven't happened?" Taylor frowned slightly as the look on his face told her that her guess was a bit too close for comfort. 'I'm going to have to have a chat with him without Amy around.'

Dennis sighed, "I had a strange dream about Taylor being a super villain and taking over part of the city. With the locker, I figured I'd check and thank her for getting rid of Sophia if my nightmares didn't turn up anything."

Amy shook her head. "You shouldn't joke about people being villains, people might get the wrong idea especially with how scary her powers are."

Taylor shrugged. "Eh, it's fine. You should read what some of the people have posted on the boards about my so called spiders of doom."

Dennis jumped back in terror as over a dozen spiders scattered around the room faded into view for a second then vanished again. "What the fuck!"

Amy glared at Taylor. "Don't do that!"

Taylor knew it wasn't polite to scare people but he was enough of a prankster that he'd appreciate the joke, at least eventually, probably. "They're perfectly harmless."

Dennis gulped as he looked around wildly trying to find any trace of the spiders. "How the hell?"

"Let's just say that Amy does great work."

Amy shook her head. "Don't blame that particular trick on me. That was Multiplier's fault."

Dennis asked, "Multiplier?"

Taylor said, "A friend of mine that copies organic beings, speaking of friends, you still owe me ice cream for your last practical joke."

"I'm pretty sure scaring a couple of years off my life makes up for that and then some." He glanced around the living room wondering where the damned invisible spiders were hiding.

"I guess you have a point. Let me tell my dad and grab a coat and we can grab some ice cream and root beer and I'll explain what I can."

Dennis looked at Amy as Taylor walked into the hallway. "Are you coming?"

Amy shook her head. "Nope, I've got a video game to finish. Besides, I'm way too comfortable to move."

"You just don't want to go outside," Taylor teased.

"Can you blame me, it's cold out there," Amy replied with amusement.

Dennis asked, "How did you meet Taylor?"

"At the hospital. I patched her up after the locker, we got to talking and we both sort of needed a friend."

"It's always nice to have friends. How can you just sit there, knowing that there are invisible fist sized spiders all over the place?"

"I'd say you get used to it, but they're bioluminescent tarantulas that she can turn invisible at will," she admitted.

"That doesn't make me feel better," he said.

Amy laughed, "At least she's not using bees to capture villains."

Taylor walked back out with her coat on. "I thought about it but I'd rather not send someone to the hospital or morgue because they're allergic to bees. Now that I think about it, invisible giant wasps could be fun. They can sting people multiple times without dying."

"Oh hell no," Dennis replied firmly.

"Spoilsport," Taylor replied as she walked over to the door and opened it.

Dennis waited until they were outside and the door was closed before whispering, "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know, the last thing I remember before waking up in my locker was getting shot in the head after the battle against Scion. After I realized that I wasn't in a dream or nightmare, I decided to make the most of things."

Dennis stared at Taylor for a couple of seconds. "So, I'm not losing my marbles?"

"I wouldn't say that, I mean you showed up to the door of a bug using cape that for all you knew was a villain without backup or your suit, what part of that screams sanity?"

"Point…" He sighed as they started walking toward the corner store. "Any idea why this world has capes that our previous world didn't?"

"You mean Multiplier?" Taylor asked.

"And Jester."

"Ah, technically speaking Multiplier was around she just went insane later…"

Dennis froze in place then stared at Taylor trying to keep his voice level. "Wait, seriously? Echidna?"

"She's a lot saner this time around because Jester got to her early enough and fixed her powers."

"Have you figured out who Jester is?"

Taylor shook her finger at Dennis. "You're not supposed to ask about people's cape identities."

"I know but seriously, I haven't found anyone else that knows…"

"Have you told anyone?"

"They'd think it was some prank but seriously what the hell is with the spiders? Can you give your bugs abilities now? Shit, Jester rerolled you didn't she? Oh fuck, please don't go villain!"

Taylor chuckled as she started walking again. "Relax, Jester can't reroll my powers."

"Why not?" He blinked as he connected the dots. "You're Jester, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I came back with the ability to see parahumans and reroll powers in addition to my bug control."

"Okay, now I feel cheated. Where's my upgrade?"

"You mean like the ability to freeze an entire area with your power and walk through it?"

"That would be handy." He grinned.

"I don't know, it might have been related to having my powers altered or winning the battle. I can try rerolling your powers later if you really want something different but your power is useful now that you can control how long you freeze things for. Either way, we're back and have the chance to make the world a better place."

"I was a bit surprised to see Amy at your house."

"She needed a friend and someone to help her blow off some steam before she went crazy."

Dennis had to admit that she had a point about Amy. "I remember what happened with her sister. What's the plan?"

"That's it?"

"What do you want me to say? You stayed in the city and helped defend people when just about everyone else wanted to give up and let the city rot. You helped take out the Slaughterhouse Nine and you fought as a Ward for longer than you were a 'villain' and you only became a villain because stuff went sideways and you were trying to help people. I know how the game is played, I've played the game; even if we manage to capture a villain, most of the time they manage to escape or get broken out in transit. The Protectorate doesn't want to win, they want heroes and villains running around so that they can toss them at the Endbringers and the end boss. Do you have a plan or was Victor just a target of opportunity?"

"Can't it be both? I was actually spying on Rune and trying to catch a glimpse of Othala when I spotted him and decided to take him down. Speaking of, why haven't you handed the names of the Empire to someone? You have to remember at least a couple of them."

Dennis shrugged. "I remember who Kaiser is, but I also remember that he has a son and that Golem turned out to be a decent hero. I didn't want to rock the boat until I was sure I wasn't crazy. That and I know they have spies in the PRT and that they'll scatter before they're caught if I went public with the names. Even Armsmaster would log the names which would warn them to cut and run. You?"

"I wasn't planning on leaking the names, I was just planning on using them to quietly drop some of the Empire capes and possibly make a deal with Othala and Rune to let Multiplier clone them."

Dennis shook his head. "You want to clone villains?"

"One of the capes in my group has the ability to cure mental issues which means we can probably get them decently sane before we copy them. Can you imagine having a mostly sane Rune on our side? She could bring massive platform weapons into battle or levitate shielded platforms that blasters could shoot from. Othala can make people nearly indestructible as well as a couple of other tricks that could come in useful. In short, they have useful powers, they're not critically important but we need some aces up our sleeves because I'm not pulling a Khepri again."

"I don't blame you," Dennis muttered as they walked into the corner store. 'I'm tired of playing a game of whack a mole with various villains.'

Taylor gave the checkout lady a smile then headed for the freezer to grab some ice cream. "What flavor of ice cream are you want?"

"Chocolate." He'd just have to be careful not to go over the line while helping Taylor.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Aisha Laborn was not having a good day, it had started off okay with being able to watch cartoons then her father had sent her out to pick up some groceries which normally wouldn't have been so bad except somewhere along the way she'd ran into a bunch of taser drones and a crazy ass parahuman that could generate force fields and was using them to turn part of the city into a twisted game of shoots and ladders. Even that wouldn't have been so bad if she'd had a chance to rest, sadly every time she tried to rest the drones would take pop shots at her which was extremely painful. Worse was the crazy bastard dressed like a ninja that kept shooting her with a paintball gun whenever she didn't take a ladder or make a jump correctly. Worse than that was the damned psycho dressed like a teddy bear that was teleporting around the 'maze' trying to hug her. Thankfully she'd fixed that problem with a swift kick to the nuts followed up by a second kick before the drones had forced her to keep moving.

Thankfully after what felt like an hour of running for her life she'd escaped by diving through a window and making a break for it into an apartment complex then crawling into a closet and hiding. 'Fuck, fuck fuck.'

A man shouted, "Get the Vorpal Bunny, we'll track her down by scent!"

'Shit, shit, shit shit, don't find me, don't find me!' Aisha blacked out as strange alien visions danced through her mind.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor answered her phone as they were walking back to her house. "What's up?"

Lisa's voice came out of the speaker, "Did you tell Uber and Leet to try to trigger Grue's sister?"

"No, I told them to make a machine so that we could trigger people; what happened?"

"Apparently Leet decided that it would be better to make a demented shoots and ladder video with Aisha as the person trying to escape rather than work on a device. Just a second, he's trying to say something but his jaw is dislocated and he has cracked ribs."

"Can't he write it?" Taylor asked.

"His hands got smashed," Lisa replied.

"Shouldn't he be able to regenerate those?"

"He's regenerating, I think his power is working on his skull fracture first."

"What the fuck happened?!"

"Grue might have flipped out a little."

Uber shouted, "He went insane!"

Lisa said, "Right, can you bring Amy? I'd rather not lose our tinker."

"Did someone calm Grue down?" Taylor asked.

"Noelle managed to drag him off of Uber before he killed him."

"Crap, I'll grab Amy and be there in ten with a friend." Taylor closed her cell phone, "So, yeah... do you want to meet the team?"

"What was that about?" Dennis asked with concern.

"That's what I'm going to find out, apparently our tinker went off the rails…"

"Do you have a spare mask?"

"I'm sure we can figure out something."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Amy glared at Leet after she finished healing him. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Leet shrunk under Amy's furious gaze of doom. "I needed a recording of a trigger event in order to build the triggering machine."

Brian glared at Leet. "Why my sister?"

"Look man, I didn't know she was your sister! I'm not suicidal; her name was on the list of people that Jester gave me that had the possibility to trigger. I figured fuck, one more, one less what's it matter, you know?"

Brian briefly considered trying to grab Leet again but Noelle was standing there and she was a hell of alot stronger than him. He settled for glaring at Leet. "Why was her name on the list?"

"Fuck if I know! She was on the top of the list, just a first name and a description. Hot, black girl… uhm… I mean right…" Leet glanced around at the rest of the people in the room. "Help me out before he kills me."

Alec laughed. "You made your bed, you can sleep in it."

Lisa sighed. "Look, she's sleeping and there shouldn't be any lasting damage. Besides, you can't kill him, your sister is going to want her piece of him."

Leet gulped. "This was not my fault. Besides, I needed the data to create the machine."

Lisa said, "Maybe you should go work on the machine, let everyone's tempers have a chance to settle." She turned to look at Brian. "You should go check on your sister. Take Jester and see if you can figure out what her powers are."

Amy held out her hand toward Grue. "Let me see your hand first."

Brian held out his hand and sighed in relief as his knuckles healed up. "Thank you."

Lisa turned and looked at Clockblocker. "Not to change the subject or anything but who is your friend?"

Taylor gestured toward Dennis. "This is Stopwatch. He's interested in helping us take down some villains."

Brian raised an eyebrow, "Stopwatch? Right, that sounds an awful lot like Clockblocker. Does he have the same powers?"

Clockblocker shrugged nonchalantly. "Suspiciously close I'm afraid. I'm just here to help against villains and Clockblocker is a hero not a rogue and well, appearances are deceiving. It's not my fault Clockblocker is a devilishly handsome and charismatic young man, much like myself."

"Let's go check on Aisha." Taylor headed to the other room to check on Aisha with Brian. She was pleasantly surprised to find that Aisha's powers were at least slightly different from the last time around. "Stranger, light bending, sense blocking, teleportation through darkness, and stealth tinkering." She shivered slightly as she realized that Aisha's powers were scarier than the last time around. "At least she has some rather nice powers from it."

"Teleportation through shadows? What is the range on that?" Brian asked.

Taylor checked on the range of the shadow teleportation. "It varies with light conditions, about a hundred feet in daylight, more at night. I can probably increase that later if she wants her powers adjusted."

"So, nothing horrible?" he asked hopefully.

"Nothing too horrible, I'll make sure her Stranger ability has an off switch and everything should be fine. We should let Mentalist take a look at any mental issues she has before she wakes up." Taylor walked over and touched Aisha's forehead and rerolled her Stranger ability a couple of times until she got a stronger version with an on and off switch. She checked the ability. 'Okay, I'm immune to her Stranger ability now, that just leaves her light bending which I can at least partially avoid via bugs. I can live with that.'

Brian sighed. "In other words, I should let Aisha deal with Leet?"

"She's the one they attacked, I'm sure she'll milk it for all it's worth and then some."

"Fine, but I'm still pissed."

"I don't blame you but she'll be fine." Taylor gave Brian a smile then walked back into the living room to plan out their attack on Rune or Othala.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Leet looked up from his blueprints. "Clones, you've cloned spiders but none of us, there needs to be more of us, I mean an all Copycat and Skill Monkey lan party sounds fun. That and if we want power armor for everyone, we're going to need more tinkers working on the problem, thus more of me."

Chariot piped up, "What am I, chopped liver?"

"No, you're working on flight belts for everyone."

Lisa glanced over at Leet then over at Amy. "Right, he has a point, we could stand to make some copies of multiple members of the team."

Alec shook his head. "I'm one of a kind."

"I was thinking about Mentalist actually. She has a rather impressive ability to cure Simurgh victims as well as mental flaws. There are various governments that would pay a decent chunk of change to clean up quarantined cities."

"I wouldn't mind another sister or two." Amy slowly smiled as she thought of having actual family, who wouldn't resent her presence or ignore her.

Leet said, "I'll go first."

Noelle held out her hand. "In that case, I need Jester to step forward and Leet to take my hand."

Taylor stepped forward.

Leet reached out and grabbed her hand. "Now what?"

Noelle reached out and touched Taylor and focused on the clone being loyal to Jester and her then copied Leet. She blinked when a naked well muscled man appeared next to her. "Huh, okay, this version doesn't have clothes either."

Grue rolled his eyes and looked away from the naked hairy man standing in the middle of the room. "Dude, clothes."

Luigi flexed with a smile. "Dude, perfect body."

Uber blinked as his eyes dropped to the clone's rather impressive body before he pulled his gaze off it. "How the hell?"

Leet laughed. "Biokinesis for the win. None of that pesky exercise shit."

Uber sighed. "I hate you, you know that right?"

Amy asked, "Aren't you the least bit concerned that you're standing naked in a room full of people?"

"Not at all," Luigi replied with amusement.

Trickster said, "Don't you have any shame?"

Luigi smirked as he gestured at his crotch. "Would you?"

Uber said, "Dude, that's so cheating."

Dennis twitched as he turned and stared at the computer screen. "Oh God my eyes, they burn," he deadpanned sarcastically.

Oliver piped up, "I still win."

Luigi looked over at Oliver. "Dude, seriously?"

"That's my power, I'm a god among men. My power lets me become any woman's heart's desire."

Amy asked, "Actually if you used your power on a straight guy would you turn into a girl?"

"I happen to like my equipment just fine so I'm not testing that," Oliver quickly said, suddenly worrying about accidentally using his ability on a woman who wasn't into men, which he'd never thought about before.

Ballistic shook his head. "We should probably get him some pants before I toss something at you and Jester complains because there are blood splatters everywhere."

Amy asked, "Can you put some pants on? It's distracting everyone…"

"Sure, no worries I'll grab some pants." Luigi turned and walked off toward Leet's room to steal some pants.

Taylor shook her head when she saw Aisha follow Luigi with a grin on her face. 'It's a good thing that Brian can't see her right now.'

Jess sighed. "I was enjoying the view."

Dennis shook his head. "Different folks, different strokes."

Trickster stared at Dennis. "I can't believe you went there."

Taylor said, "His sense of humor is almost as bad as Alec's."

Alec flipped Taylor off. "I'm not that bad."

Lisa shook her head. "You're worse."

Uber said, "We should set up a body modification clinic if Copycat is going to cheat that bad."

Leet snorted, "Dude, I'd be an idiot not to buff up now that I can just borrow biokinesis. Low level brute and perfect health, for free. It's like dropping a fighter skin on myself."

"Cheating bastard," Uber muttered ruefully.

Alec smirked. "So, who are we copying next? Maybe one of the cute girls?"

Amy glared at Alec. "You just want to see one of the girls naked."

Alec tilted his head as he looked at Amy. "No, I want to see all of them naked. I didn't realize I was being subtle here."

Amy stared at Alec speechlessly.

Lisa rolled her eyes. "He's an acquired taste."

"You tasted him? Yuck!" Amy declared.

Alec laughed. "That was rude and uncalled for, I'm starting to like you."

Amy blushed.

"Who wants to go next?" Taylor asked as she looked around the room.

Uber shrugged. "I'll go next."

Trickster said, "New rule, guys need to grab extra clothes."

Sundancer snorted. "We're grabbing clothes before we start."

Alec blinked. "Hey now, eye candy is eye candy."

Jess laughed as she eyed Alec. "If he could play video games half as well as he flirted, we'd be in business."

Alec raised an eyebrow. "What type of game are you suggesting?"

"I'm sure we can find something to test your skills with."

Noelle looked at Jester. "Let's go to the side room and work on creating copies there, that way we don't offend people."

Grue asked, "Weren't we supposed to be planning a strike on Othala and or Rune?"

Lisa said, "Don't worry, I have a plan and I know where to grab them thanks to Jester's scouting."

Noelle gestured toward the hallway. "Jester and Mentalist, let's go make copies."

'Carol would freak…" Amy smiled behind her mask. 'Carol would freak. My sister, mine.' She stood up and followed Noelle and Jester out of the room, down the hall to a conference room. "Now what?"

Jester reached over and swapped Amy's power back to her original power. "You get a sister and I get a new friend."

Noelle held out her hands. "Grab my hands and we'll get this show on the road."

Taylor reached out and grabbed Noelle's left hand while Amy lightly grabbed the other.

Noelle focused on the copy being loyal to Jester and her then created a copy of Mentalist. "So that's what you look like under your mask."

"Yeah, just don't tell anyone, please." Amy looked her clone over with a faint blush as she realised that her copy was cute which made sense all things considered but was still a little weird.

Taylor smiled as she looked at the naked clone of Amy. "How does Amelia sound for a name?"

The clone looked at Amy then back at Jester. "That works for me." She grinned as she looked down at her breasts then over at Amy then at Jester. "So, who do I get my first kiss from?"

Noelle backed up a step when Jester and Amy let go of her hands. "Not it."

Amelia pouted. "Okay, that leaves Jester or my other half." She giggled as she looked over her shoulder at her behind. "Damn we look good."

Amy took off her mask revealing her red face. "How about a hug?"

Amelia stepped forward and pulled Amy into a hug then leaned forward and licked her face. "You're mine."

Amy sputtered as she dropped the hug and wiped slobber off her face. "I think she's a bit crazy."

Amelia snickered as she stepped back spun in place with her arms spread. "We need to find a girlfriend to tag team."

Noelle snorted. "We could always make another copy."

Amelia grinned as she ran her hands over her breasts and tweaked her nipples. "Copy away."

Taylor looked at Amelia and noted that she had enhanced strength, minor regeneration and the fact that she had a thinker power that made it so she didn't have to sleep in addition to a copy of Amy's powers. "Sounds good." She reached out and touched Noelle's hand.

Amelia stepped forward and grabbed Noelle's free hand.

Noelle focused on loyalty to her and Jester then created a copy of Amelia. "There."

The new copy giggled as she looked back and forth between Amy and Amelia. "Sisters three, we're going to have so much fun."

Amelia said, "Wild kinky sex type fun."

Amy's face went beat red. "Crap."

"Bend me over and spank me love." The new copy playfully stuck her tongue out at Amy.

Taylor studied the new girl's abilities, 'Huh, her strength is slightly higher than Amelia's and she has enhanced dexterity and nearly perfect recall in addition to not having to sleep and regeneration and doesn't seem that much crazier, I guess time will tell on that.' She spoke up, "How does Claire sound for a name?"

The new copy rolled the name around in her head for about twenty seconds then nodded. "I like it."

Amy glanced back and forth between Claire and Amelia. "You both need clothes."

Taylor cut in when she noticed the copies were going to protest, "Or at least masks."

Claire said, "Or we could just blow their minds and skip the masks."

Amy blinked, "What?"

"It's not like they don't know who we are and honestly, if we're working as a team, they might as well know," Claire replied.

"But some of them are…" Amy paused as she glanced at Noelle, "reformed villains."

Amelia said, "We either trust them to watch our backs or we don't."

"You don't have any shame do you?" Amy asked.

"Nope, we're hot and we know it," Claire replied playfully.

Taylor held up her hands. "It's up to you."

Amy muttered, "Just don't expect me to strip."

Noelle shook her head. "Either way, I'm going to go copy Skill Monkey at least once."

Amy said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Noelle smiled as she left.

Taylor asked, "Now what?"

Amelia snickered. "Now we find some clothes so that we're not a distraction and plan Othala's and Rune's capture."

Amy said, "Thank you."

"There should be some spare clothes in the other room, I'll grab them." Taylor left the conference room and headed off to grab extra clothes. 'At least we have plenty of money.'

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Aisha giggled as she finished unlocking the house's security system from the inside. She had to admit that her powers were awesome even if she still wasn't done teasing Copycat and his twin for making her run a life sized 3D 'death' maze. She opened the door to Othala's house with a smile. "I killed the alarm. She's passed out on the couch thanks to whatever was on that rag Leet gave me."

Taylor slipped inside, glad to be out of sight. Not that she was expecting anyone to actually be out and about in the dark but all it would take was someone noticing that the bundled up girls were wearing ski masks under their hoods. Sure, it was winter and it was cold out but cops typically considered such behavior suspicious at best. "Just remember, no evidence."

Noelle walked in and glanced around at the rather nice living room before walking over to the couch where a decently attractive one eyed blonde woman was sprawled on the couch. "Any problems?"

Aisha closed the door again as soon as Amelia walked in. "Nope, it was a piece of cake."

Amelia felt a bit bad about the fact that she was technically breaking and entering even if it was a villain's house and not so much breaking as just entering. She knew it was for a good cause but it still felt a bit dirty. She reached out with her mind healing ability and checked the unconscious cape's mental issues. "Okay, let's see, mental issues, racism and a lot of childhood emotional abuse…" She used her power and deleted the cape's mental issues as well as her recent depression over Victor being captured. "Done and gone. Okay, make a copy and we'll get out of here."

Aisha scowled at the unconscious neo-nazi. "Are you sure we can't just haul her into the PRT and drop her off anonymously?"

Taylor shrugged. "We could but that would probably drive the Empire into a frenzy and this way there's a chance that she'll leave the Empire on her own which would do far more damage to their cause than someone grabbing her and turning her in would do."

"Fine, I don't have to like it," Aisha replied.

Noelle lightly grabbed Amelia's hand and touched Othala on the forehead. "Grab my arm Jester."

Taylor reached out and grabbed Noelle's wrist.

Noelle focused on loyalty to Amelia and Taylor then created a teenage 'copy' of the Empire cape. She frowned slightly when she noticed that the copy was still missing her eye. "We're going to have to fix the copy's eye."

Amelia checked the copy's mind for mental issues. "Nothing other than the exhibitionist quality, she's good to go. I'll heal her eye after my powers get flipped back."

Taylor glanced at the clock then back at the naked teenager sprawled on Othala. "We can fix the rest later."

Aisha said, "Let me arm the security system then we'll toss her in the van and copy Rune the same way."

Amelia reached down and picked up the admittedly attractive blonde teenager. "This still feels like cheating."

Aisha focused and bent light around the unconscious teenager making her hard to see or at least she was hoping she'd be harder to see in the dark. She walked over to the security system. "Everyone out then I'll arm it and teleport out through shadows."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Dennis glanced up as Taylor and Amelia walked back into the living room of the base she'd taken him to. "How did the mission go?"

"We got copies of Othala and Rune and Amelia cleaned up their mental baggage or at least most of it."

"Most?"

Amelia said, "Being a nudist isn't a flaw, it's a quality thus I didn't see any reason to fix it."

Dennis asked, "How did they take being told they were copies?"

"Badly, lots and lots of screaming," Taylor muttered.

Alec said, "Please tell me that Rune's copy isn't going to rip the base apart."

Taylor shook her head. "Nah, I rerolled her power to only affect milk. I'll fix it once she's calmed down."

Alec asked, "How many mental issues did she have?"

Amelia rolled her eyes. "Mild sociopathic and antisocial tendencies, low empathy and she likes money, the Empire paid well."

"You mean she's not actually a racist?"

"No, she just disliked people in general."

Alec laughed. "Sounds like a barrel of fun, she's hot, right?"

"She's decent looking," Amelia admitted.

Dennis asked, "What's next?"

Taylor said, "We get some sleep, tomorrow we work on rerolling your power a bit then we go after the Slaughterhouse Nine."

Alec stared at Taylor. "Are you fucking nuts?"

Dennis blinked, "Repeat that, that almost sounded like you said we were going after the Slaughterhouse Nine."

Taylor smiled at Alec. "No more than you are. Jack, Shatterbird and Crawler need to die, we can probably fix the rest of them with a combination of Amelia's power and mine."

"Hatchet Face?"

Amelia asked, "What about Bonesaw? She's a monster."

"She was also a child when Jack grabbed her and your power should help with fixing some of her issues. As for Hatchet Face, I have better range than he does." Taylor wasn't sure if he could be cured or not but figured that she could reroll his power at range without too many issues.

Alec snorted. "Just as long as you don't expect me to help, I'll wish you good luck."

Dennis took a deep breath then let it out. "Okay, assuming we ignore the insane part of your plan which is attacking the Slaughterhouse Nine in the first place, how do you plan on finding them?"

"I know a guy that should be able to track them down for us. Either that or I bet Dragon has a decent idea where they are."

"That still sounds insane."

"I have a decent range with my bugs and I know a guy with a rather large rifle for Jack if I can't deal with him."

Alec shook his head. "Do you actually think you can reroll Siberian's power?"

"I'm hoping to hell I can, otherwise we use Chariot's teleportation belts and flee like the wind. I'm going to need to talk to Claire and Amy about giving some of my spiders a paralyzing bite or something a bit stronger than what they have now."

Dennis said, "If we're hunting the Nine, I want a ranged ability and a rifle, maybe some more backup."

"I'll see what we can figure out tomorrow. You should probably get home and try to get some sleep."

Dennis groaned. "Shit, I forgot about that."

Amelia snickered as she deleted the tired quality from Dennis. "There, see Amy on the way out and she'll fix your body, I mean she'll refresh things."

Dennis blinked as he suddenly felt wide awake again. "Thanks. I need to get home and then head to school."

Alec smirked. "Sucks to be you."

"Good luck." Taylor pulled out her phone to look up the most recent sightings of the Slaughterhouse Nine.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The local 'hero' Burrito Boy shouted, "You have terrorized my town long enough villains!"

Jack Slash scowled as he slashed his blade at a local grown 'hero' that could expel clouds of yellowish knockout gas from his ass and his knife refused to lengthen or anything. He slashed it at the bumbling disgrace again only for the same thing to happen. "What the hell?"

Mannequin tapped his claws on the ground once.

Siberian raised an eyebrow but stayed where she was holding Jack and Burnscar's hands. Normally they tended to split up a bit more but they were in Texas and the locals had some disturbingly large guns and had been taking potshots at them all morning.

Shatterbird screamed and let go of the Siberian as a dozen glowing tarantulas appeared out of nowhere and mobbed her. She fell unconscious from the venom before she could crawl over and touch the Siberian.

Burnscar turned her attention toward Shatterbird when more tarantulas appeared out of nowhere and attacked her. She did better than Shatterbird as she held onto the Siberian which meant that the spiders merely bounced off of her.

Hatchet Face ran toward the cape that was obviously more powerful than they'd thought despite his ridiculous assless chaps and Zorro mask. "I'm going to kill you!"

Regent smirked and pulled the trigger on his sniper rifle when the Siberian vanished.

Burnscar gulped as Jack's head exploded in a shower of gore. "What the hell?"

Burrito Boy turned, bent down and used his power in Hatchet Face's general direction. "Burrito Power!"

Hatchet Face had barely enough time to register the horrible stench of the gas before dropping unconscious.

Burnscar screamed as she found herself tossed toward the cloud of noxious gas. "Fuck!"

Mannequin crumpled as an old steel bodied car slammed into him at the speed of a bullet.

Alec gulped he as he saw Crawler coming toward his and Taylor's position. "A little help here."

Taylor grumbled, "I'm trying, he's moving… got him." She rerolled the mutation part of Crawler's power and smiled slightly as the monster crashed into the ground as his body started twisting and shrinking. "Noelle, grab Mannequin. Stopwatch, grab Crawler."

Dennis raised his hand, gestured at Crawler and froze him. "I love having a ranged time stop."

"Don't abuse it and you can keep it."

Noelle charged Mannequin and put her fist through his chest then felt around for organic components. She focused on loyalty as she copied him and smiled when a teenage boy appeared next to her. She grabbed the cyborg with her free hand and ripped it in half then started tearing the rest of it apart.

Alan stared at Noelle as he stumbled and fell on his ass in shock.

Noelle reached down, grabbed Alan by the feet, picked him up then walked over to the cloud of yellow gas and dipped him into the cloud. "How long does your power keep them unconscious?"

Burrito Boy blinked. "Two hours or thereabouts. How did you take down the Siberian?"

"Magic," Noelle replied.

Aisha snickered as she tossed a penny at the creepy looking hero. "Penny for your thoughts." She snickered as she vanished leaving the cape wondering why he was holding a Penny. She dragged Manton's unconscious body over to where Jester and Alec were standing with Amelia and Stopwatch.

Taylor tensed slightly as a door opened in thin air and the Number Man stepped out. "Ah good, just in time to pick up the bodies."

The Number Man glanced warily at the capes that had taken out the Nine. "You killed them?"

"Mannequin was an abomination and too far gone to reason with while Jack was far too persuasive and deranged to leave alive." Taylor dropped her voice lower so the local hero wouldn't hear her, "We made a copy of Mannequin that we'll cure of mental derangements because his power is rather useful. I rerolled Crawler's power so that he keeps a human shape with the same adaptive abilities he has now. If you scour his brain box he might actually be useful as a meat shield, at least for one or two hits against the big bad."

The Number Man frowned slightly as he realized that Jester knew about Scion. "Scour his brain box?"

Jester said, "You have a cape that can erase memories, now is probably a decent time to use him to mind wipe the survivors so we can turn them into something useful. Shatterbird has city wide telekinesis, I can most likely unlock what she can control. Crawler gets more durable every time he's injured and Manton creates a nearly indestructible projection."

"Nearly?" The Number Man asked in a voice just above a whisper.

"I know of two things that can pop 'her' other than the big bad but yes, it is somewhat effective against him."

"What do you want?" He asked curiously.

"A couple of things, the Slaughterhouse Nine stays 'dead', the bounties get paid without hassle and the capes I hand over get their minds scrubbed."

"Bonesaw has useful information as does Mannequin."

Taylor scowled slightly. "Bonesaw wasn't here and Alan's clone should be fine now that he's had his derangements fixed. Burnscar's power messed with her head as well, I can probably fix that. I'd also like access to your memory altering cape so that I can adjust his or her powers so they can be more specific in what they erase. Unless he or she is just lazy and takes everything because they don't want to sort through a bunch of memories?"

The Number Man frowned slightly. "You're asking for access to one of my more important capes."

"I'll sweeten the deal. If you make sure my team gets the bounties and you talk Eidolon into letting Mentalist remove his derangements, I'll tell him how to fix his power."

"I'm going to have to ask you exactly what you mean." The Number Man glanced at the other masked man then looked back at Jester.

"The powers he can call on are getting weaker. I know a way to fix that and I'll trade that knowledge if he is willing to get his head fixed by Mentalist. I'll even toss in fixing Alexandria's eye."

"Why should I believe you?" The Number Man asked.

"You can run the numbers. I might hate your methods but the world would be a hell of a lot better without the golden idiot around."

Dennis scowled but kept his mouth shut about Scion.

The Number Man sighed slightly as he glanced down at Jack's body then looked at Jester. "I have no problem with making sure you get the reward money for the group. I'll talk to the others about giving you access to our memory eraser as it would be easier if he was better at it. Speaking of interesting services, how much are you charging for clones?"

"I don't sell people by the by but if someone wants to be cloned, I'm sure Multiplier can work out some type of deal," Taylor replied.

Alec said, "Actually, some of our members could use pardons for past shit, do you think you can swing that?"

Number Man pulled out his cell phone as he glanced at the cloud of nasty stun gas that was breaking up. "I'll make some calls."

"Thanks," Taylor replied.

Dennis wasn't particularly happy making a deal with anyone from Cauldron but they had access to a lot of resources and could make everything a lot easier as long as Taylor could keep them off balance.


	4. Chapter 4

Eidolon looked across the table at Number Man. "I can't believe you just let them leave."

Number Man asked, "What would you have me do? Attack a group that can turn our worst failures into exceptional soldiers? All so that we can save some sociopathic monsters? Jack was my friend at one point but the man was cracked in the head at the best of times."

"The Slaughterhouse Nine helped cause trigger events."

"In the grand scheme of things, the number of capes they created is insignificant compared to what Jester's team can do for us."

Alexandria asked, "Can you control them?"

Number Man said, "As long as we're working toward destroying Scion, we can trust their motives."

Doctor Mother looked at Contessa. "What do you think?"

Contessa considered several paths and selected the one with the best chance of killing Scion. "As long as we don't give them access to Doormaker or Clairvoyant or try to screw them over they won't betray us."

Eidolon asked, "What about their claims that they can fix my power?"

Number Man said, "Jester believes that she knows the answer."

"How is that even possible?"

Alexandria asked, "Does it matter? Exposing Eidolon to a master effect is a huge risk."

"I doubt it would matter." Contessa turned to look at Eidolon. "From what Number Man has described all she'd have to do is show up at an Endbringer fight and use her power on you. You might notice but you'd still be exposed. I can't read her all that well because of her abilities but I can model things and as far as I can tell, her ability doesn't come with a Master component."

Eidolon asked, "So you're saying I might as well?"

"Yes."

Eidolon said, "Let's set up a meeting then."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Emily Piggot glared at Dennis. "You joined a rogue team and left the city without authorization what do you have to say for yourself?"

Dennis said, "Officially, I left the city with some friends for some rest and relaxation. Stopwatch helped take out the Nine with a ranged time stop power that looked rather cool."

"And unofficially? Who were you with?"

"Technically speaking what I do on my own time is my business. As for leaving the city, I wasn't on call and there isn't anything in my contract that says I have to clear leaving the city with you or anyone else. You don't own me, I merely work here."

"You have to file a report when you leave." Emily glared at Dennis.

Armsmaster spoke up, "That's not technically true. He's encouraged to let his supervisor know that he'll be unavailable but not required as long as he's not on call."

Emily glared at Armsmaster. "I can't have my Wards running off whenever they feel like it which means that I'll have to put you on suspension pending an investigation as to your activities."

Dennis knew that at one point he'd have been more concerned about what the Director thought but the last couple of years had burned that out of him. "Are you trying to get me to quit?"

"What?" Emily asked in surprise.

"It's a simple question. You ask me up here and accuse me of being Stopwatch then you start asking about my personal life and get belligerent when I politely tell you that my personal life is none of your business. So, what's next, I disagree with you and you lock me up so you can make 'sure' I'm not being affected by a Master or Stranger?"

"That is certainly an option."

Armsmaster briefly considered following one of the social prompts his helmet was suggesting then decided that in this particular case being blunt was better, "Stop being a bitch, Director."

Emily turned to look at Armsmaster in surprise. "What?"

"I said stop being a bitch. You're the Director of the PRT, not the Wards. The only reason you have anything to do with the Wards at all is because the location of the Protectorate base makes travel problematic for the Wards. That said, I can make other arrangements if you're going to continue to subject them to your bigotry."

"Get out!"

"Let's go." Armsmaster turned and calmly headed toward the door. He wasn't going to let the director run roughshod over someone that helped put an end to the nine even if he wasn't going to admit it officially.

Dennis decided that leaving with Armsmaster was better than listening to the irate Director bitch or threaten him. 'Being a Ward comes with too much red tape.'

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Eidolon scowled as he felt like he'd just eaten too much ice cream at once. "How long does the headache last?"

"Maybe ten seconds," Amelia replied as she studied the Protectorate meeting room Eidolon had borrowed for the meeting.

Alexandria blinked a couple of times, still not used to having her eye back. "You've cured Eidolon of his mental issues, explain what is wrong with his power."

Taylor said, "There is nothing wrong with his power, it's working as intended."

"It's getting weaker," Eidolon replied in annoyance.

"Your power is the same as it ever was, you're just out of juice."

Alexandria glared at the Jester. "If this was some type of trick I'm going to be annoyed."

Taylor held up her hands. "It's not a trick, the framework is just fine and I have a solution. Just give me a couple of seconds to explain before you do something drastic." She turned to look directly at Eidolon. It had actually been a bit of a shock and relief to find out that Eidolon's power wasn't actually responsible for the Endbringers like some people had claimed when they went a bit weird after his death. "Your power was never designed to be given out, it was designed to be Eden's go-to power. To make a long story short, you should have a power in your toolbox to drink in heat energy in order to recharge. That means you can open a portal or teleport to Venus and start refilling your batteries by absorbing the planet's heat."

Eidolon blinked as he considered Jester's suggestion. "That might actually work."

Alexandria asked warily, "How do you know this?"

Taylor sighed. "Because I've seen it happen, the last time around Jack Slash convinced Scion that if being a hero wasn't filling the void in whatever passes for his 'heart' then he should try destruction and thus Scion went off the rails and started trying to blow the Earth up or rather every Earth. It was sort of like a sick joke to him."

Amelia frowned behind her mask, Taylor had some explaining to do once they got back to base.

"You're claiming to be a precog that can see Scion?" Eidolon asked in annoyance.

"No, I'm saying I'm from the future. Someone sent me back in time to deal with Scion before he destroys most of our Earth."

Alexandria asked in disbelief. "How are you planning on doing that?"

"By doing something that Scion never intended, working together. I know how to kill him, I just don't have the people I need, at least not yet. You can grab people from the birdcage, I want several people sprung."

Eidolon asked, "How would we do that?"

"Doormaker and Clairvoyant." Taylor sighed as she noticed Eidolon and Alexandria both tense. "I don't care about your schemes, I don't care about your plots or every shady deal you've made in the past, I know how to kill him and with your help I can."

"How?"

"Look, give me the people I want and by the end of the month, he'll be dead. What do you have to lose?"

"If you attack him, he might go on a killing spree," Alexandria replied.

"Unlikely, it's a lot more likely that he'd simply kill the strike team. Either way, you know that something has to change."

"If you know how to kill him, tell us," Eidolon stated.

"I'd rather take my shot leaving you to continue on if it doesn't work."

Alexandria could see the logic even if she didn't like it. "Assuming that we agreed to help you, who do you need?"

"I want to make a sane copy of Teacher and Ingenue. Teacher because he can boost Tinkers and give people Thinker and Tinker abilities and Ingenue because she can boost people's powers, sure at the cost of sanity but Mentalist should be able to fix that if I can't reroll that aspect of her powers. That would give the ability to supercharge certain powers."

Eidolon asked mildly sarcastically, "Anything else?"

Taylor ignored the sarcasm. "That should do it."

Alexandria asked, "What happened to us the last time around?"

"You ended up brain dead because you pissed off the wrong cape when she was having a mental breakdown and Eidolon faltered in the last battle and got splattered. We still won, at least for a given value of win."

"If what you say is true, why risk it?"

"No idea, it wasn't my choice but if I had to guess, it was because of the billions of dead people and various Earths being rendered uninhabitable."

Amelia coughed. "Billions?"

"Yeah…" Taylor trailed off as memories of the fight surfaced.

Alexandria frowned slightly as she considered the two villains' powersets, she could understand why they'd be useful though she didn't want to let it be known that Cauldron had a way to rescue people from the cage. "I can't justify releasing Teacher or Ingenue but if you can carefully copy them, I'll have the Number Man set something up."

"Thank you, this should help," Taylor agreed.

Amelia asked, "Now what?"

Alexandria said, "Now we make a press conference about the Slaughterhouse Nine."

Taylor asked, "Actually before that, have you found Bonesaw?"

Alexandria shook her head. "No, she vanished without a trace several days ago. Alan doesn't know where she is. I'd ask Crawler but we wiped his mind because he wasn't at all cooperative."

Amelia shivered. "I'm sure she'll turn up."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Riley grumbled as she watched the news about her old team's capture. As much as she wanted to be a Good Girl and get away from Jack and everyone it was still rather mortifying to have her team taken out by a half naked teenage boy with a gas attack that called himself Burrito Boy. "Burrito Boy? That's pathetic. At least there were a couple of other heroes involved..." She looked away from the television and back over at the dead scummy gang 'doctor' that had offered her 'candy' when she'd wandered into his clinic. She knew she was supposed to be a good girl, but good girls took out the trash, right?

She bounced to her feet then walked over and raided the doctor's collection of tools. It wasn't ideal but she'd had to leave most of hers when she'd ditched the rest of the Nine. She wanted to be good but he'd just talk her into doing bad things or at least he would have. She wasn't sure how she felt about him being dead, but at least this time around he wouldn't tell Scion to blow up the Earth, she happened to like the Earth thank you very much and she didn't want to be a bad girl.

She turned to leave the 'clinic' and froze as she saw the spiders on the television. "Bioluminescent spiders? That's sort of neat, Blasto or Panacea, maybe others, obvious spider control probably means Skitter, fiddlesticks. Why did it have to be Skitter? She should be in Brockton Bay still, then again, they should have been okay, even without me there, they shouldn't have been able to kill the Siberian or Crawler and yet they did. Hopefully that doesn't screw up my plans too badly." She sighed as she walked over to the dead doctor and grabbed his right hand and set it on the table. "Sorry, I know good girls don't chop people's hands off… but I need your safe open and you're way too heavy to lift." She pulled her 'new' bonesaw out and started working on cutting his hand off so that she could use his fingerprint on the wall safe.

Fifteen minutes later she had her bag of cash and was across town at Faultline's club. Twenty minutes after that, she had a meeting with Jester and Mentalist who was supposed to be able to cure mental issues. She glanced over at the female masked figure standing off to the side that was obviously some type of bodyguard. "I think my power is messing with me and I'm not all that sane… I can pay if you can fix my mind and make sure my power isn't screwing with me."

Amelia reached out with her power and looked at the list of mental issues the young cape had. 'Holy shit… okay, none of that is genetic but damn she has issues…' She selected the worst of the problems and deleted them. She cut the girl's obsession with being a Good Girl down a bit but left it as it wasn't really a 'bad' thing for her to cling to. "Okay mental issues dealt with."

Riley shivered as her brain seemed to freeze. "Brain freeze."

Taylor studied the girl's powers. "Riley? How come you weren't with Jack?"

Riley froze then reached for her knife only to find that she wasn't even close to fast enough when the bodyguard dashed over and grabbed her almost before she could react. "Fiddlesticks."

Taylor said, "Don't hurt her. She's a walking plague."

"I didn't have the tools to fix that. I had to ditch everything when I left, Jack."

"Why did you leave, Jack?"

"Because he thought destroying the world was a good idea or he would have. It was only a matter of time before I wasn't his little girl anymore and then he'd have killed me… and I don't want to die and my power whispers things, can you fix it?"

"Sure, let me take a look." Taylor used the tiny bug she'd landed on Riley to reroll the part of Riley's powers that influenced her to do bad things and cause conflict until they lightly encouraged her to help people. She considered rerolling Riley's power but it was a rather useful ability. "Okay, that should do it."

"That's it?" Riley asked curiously.

"I fixed the conflict part and Mentalist fixed your mental issues."

Amelia said, "Most of them at least."

"Most?" Riley asked.

"I toned down your obsession with being a good girl a little but dealt with a bunch of other issues… who is Jack?"

Taylor said, "Jack Slash, he sort of broke her…"

Amelia gulped as she stepped back. "Are you telling me that she's Bonesaw?"

"Not anymore, honest…" Riley trailed off not sure what to say.

Taylor said, "We're going to have to bring in a specialist to remove your cyberware and fix your body but after that…"

Riley asked hopefully, "You'll let me go?"

"Yeah not so much, until I know that you aren't going to go off the deep end again, I think you'll have to stay at the base."

Noelle asked, "You're actually considering letting her stay in the base?"

"Considering Mentalist cured her issues and she was trying to turn over a new leaf in the future, I'm willing to have Panacea clean her up and remove all of the nasty stuff."

Amelia asked, "How did you escape when Crawler can track by scent?"

"I took a swim in a stream and used a chemical to alter my scent temporarily. It wasn't hard, the guy wasn't all that smart."

Amelia rubbed her nose. "Please tell me that the rest of the people you're going to recruit aren't as evil as Bonesaw."

Taylor scowled. "Teacher is worse in his own way or at least he has less of an excuse. If we promise to be nice, can we trust you not to cause problems?"

Riley sighed. "Considering I need a new face and to have my legs fixed, sure, I'll play nice. Besides, even if I wanted to, I doubt I could escape your bodyguard."

Noelle reached out and lightly grabbed Taylor then focused on loyalty to herself and Jester then copied Riley. "Do you think she'll cause problems."

Riley stared at the naked slightly older looking red haired naked girl with her face that had appeared out of thin air. "How did you do that?"

The copy said, "She's trying to be a good girl. Don't worry, I'll make sure she behaves."

Riley frowned. "You're me aren't you?"

"Without the crap you stuck inside yourself."

"I like my subdermal armor and…"

"And you're a teenager who is still growing, so none of that crap is healthy. We'll get you cleaned up and fixed then you can be my slightly evil twin or something."

Riley glanced at her copy's breasts then back at her face. "Clothes?"

"Not all that important in the grand scheme of things," the copy replied unconcerned.

Taylor said, "I'll borrow something from the lost and found."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Breaking into the Birdcage when you had someone that could open portals was almost anticlimactic. The only frustrating thing was that she'd rerolled Teacher's power a dozen times and the best tradeoff for his master ability caused everyone to randomly burst into song. Thankfully it wasn't permanent but it was still weird and annoying. She also had to reroll the shard based directive that seemed to make him want to play god over three dozen times before she ended with something even halfway reasonable, another dozen rerolls gave him a mild compulsion to help people which worked rather nicely as far as she was concerned. She whispered, "You're up Mentalist."

Amelia deleted his rather large collection of mental issues. "Clean."

Erase reached through the small door floating in thin air and touched Teacher's forehead and activated his ability erasing all of Teacher's memories though not skills or general knowledge. "He's a blank slate." He pulled his hand back then took a step back.

Number Man wouldn't have really cared one way or another if Teacher kept his memories except Teacher was the type of person that would spike things in the middle of a deal just so he could have an extra cookie. "Good."

Noelle stepped up then reached through the portal and touched Teacher on the head She grabbed Taylor with her left hand then focused on loyalty to her and Taylor then created a teenage copy of the mind wiped villain. She pulled her hand back and caught the unconscious teen. "There."

Number Man said, "Door Ingenue's cell."

The small door closed and another small door opened this one showing a sleeping woman.

Taylor sent a small bug through the portal and landed it on Ingenue. She looked over the woman's powers. 'Power manipulation with a side dish of madness and the ability to twist herself into someone's ideal mate… that's got to go.' She rerolled the homicidal rage part of Ingenue's power half a dozen times until she got something that wasn't a version of hulk smash. 'Increases attraction to girls.' She whispered, "I guess that works for now. You're up Mentalist."

Amelia reached out and checked the woman's mental issues then deleted everything. "Done. You're up Multi."

Eraser asked, "You're not going to erase the original?"

Taylor shook her head. "No, Teacher was a special case of fucked up and he had a plan to escape that might have worked. Ingenue is just a criminal and messed up parahuman stuck in a nightmare prison, erasing her memories would result in her death rather quickly, feel free to mind wipe the clone."

Noelle set the unconscious teen on the table then stepped forward, reached through the portal and grabbed Ingenue.

Ingenue thrashed and lashed out with her power as she woke up and found herself held.

Noelle focused on loyalty to her and Jester and created a copy of Ingenue or at least that was the intention the actual result was that she produced a copy of herself and Ingenue.

The Noelle copy quickly turned away from Number Man and Eraser and covered her face. "Shit."

The Ingenue copy looked around frantically then darted for the door to the conference room they were using.

Number Man tossed a pen at the copy's foot or rather just in front of it causing her to hit it at just the right angle and slip and fall which let the Noelle copy grab the Ingenue copy with her free hand.

Noelle let go of the original Ingenue and pulled her hand out of the portal. "Done."

"Close the door."

The small door winked out.

Amelia handed the Noelle copy a shirt to cover her face with, it wasn't perfect but it was the best she had.

The Noelle copy covered her face with the shirt, it wasn't the best but she didn't really want Eraser or Number Man to see her face.

Erase reached out and grabbed the Ingenue copy then erased her personality and memories though not her skills or language. "Done."

The Ingenue copy looked around in confusion as Erase stepped back. "Who are you?"

Number Man turned toward the clone and started into his spiel about how they were friends and that he'd help the girl out. It wasn't like he hadn't done the same spiel dozens of times already with their case 53s.

Noelle looked at her copy. "Great…"

The naked copy of Noelle's words were a little muffled by her shirt as she said, "At least we know her boost ability works."

Noelle turned to look at Taylor and asked, "Am I going to go insane?"

Taylor shook her head. "No, it takes chronic use and I swapped her power from homicidal rage to increased attraction to girls. It's not the best but it's the best I could do on short notice."

Amelia chuckled. "That could be useful."

Taylor glanced at the naked copy of Noelle. "It could be worse."

Noelle blushed. "Put some clothes on."

The copy stuck her tongue out at Noelle.

Number Man asked, "Do you need anything else?"

Taylor considered telling Number Man more of her plan then decided to keep the details quiet as she didn't want Cauldron to screw it up or Scion to overhear or something equally as damaging. No reason to share that the precog dampening field that Aisha and Copycat were building was a key piece of the plan or that they needed Clockblocker and Flechette for her plan to work. The fact of the matter was they'd likely need to copy Clockblocker and Flechette a couple of times in order to get at least one clean shot on Scion. "Actually, let me grab Regent and you can open a door to Saint's hideout, he has something I want."

Number Man asked, "What?"

"Information to help a friend." She was almost ninety five percent sure that Leet could unchain Dragon using the kill switch Saint had. While Dragon wasn't necessary to kill Scion, she would be extremely helpful in dealing with a lot of villains once the endbringers and Scion were dealt with.

Taylor smiled broadly. If things worked out as planned, they would have everything completed in a matter of days.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor woke up screaming from a nightmare about being attacked from behind then tortured with lightning. It took a her a couple of seconds to calm down enough to realize that she was in the hospital and that she was wearing a hospital gown and tied to the hospital bed with leather cuffs on her ankles and wrists. She glanced over at the door as she heard it open. "What the hell?"

Panacea walked into the room. "How are you feeling?"

Taylor stared at the strange masked person that was wearing a rune embroidered white robe and a smiling white theater mask. "What the hell is going on?"

"You were found unconscious at the bottom of the stairs Taylor."

"Amy?" Taylor asked warily.

"Panacea in costume, apparently I have a secret identity in this world," Amy replied with a touch of amusement.

"Can you get me out of these cuffs?" Taylor asked hopefully.

"I don't know, you look sort of cute like that." Amy removed the straps on Taylor's left wrist then left leg leaving Taylor free to undo the right cuffs."

"Any particular reason that I was chained up?" Taylor asked warily.

Amy walked over and checked her friend's paperwork. "You were thrashing and screaming when the EMTs brought you in, they had to sedate you."

"Ah, that would do it," Taylor admitted.

Amy asked, "Am I still glowing?"

"You're still glowing. Do you still have your powers?"

"Permission to check something?" Amy waited until Taylor nodded then reached down and touched Taylor on the ankle with her hand. "Interesting, your corona is different than before. Can you still reroll powers?"

Taylor focused on her power. "Yeah, there is something new as well, I get the sense that there is another aspect to it..." she trailed off as Amy hanked her hand away then jumped backwards.

"Sorry…" Amy took a breath then let it out. "I'd rather not get turned into a monster or something. We got lucky the last time but might not be so lucky this time."

Taylor felt like her throat swelled shut as someone that looked a lot like her mother walked into the room with Emma Barnes. The weird thing was they were both glowing. "What is going on?"

Emma smiled brightly at Taylor. "You're okay!" She moved toward the bed then stopped as Taylor twitched and inched backward. She looked at Panacea in confusion. "Is she okay?"

"Are you okay, honey?" Annette asked hopefully.

"Mom?" Taylor asked in disbelief.

"Did she hit her head?" Emma asked in confusion.

Amy wasn't sure what to say as Emma wasn't acting like the girl she knew or had heard of. That and Taylor's mother was supposed to be dead. "She might have…"

Annette stated firmly, "We'll find out who attacked you."

Emma scowled. "I bet it was Sophia, that bitch had it out for you ever since you turned her down for Prom at the end of last year."

Annette patted Emma on the shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll make sure the school actually steps up."

Taylor's mind ground to a halt as she tried to process several things at once, why Sophia would want to go to the prom with her, what the hell was up with her mother being alive, why it actually looked like Emma cared what happened to her and just what type of messed up world she'd ended up in. "I seem to be experiencing some memory loss…"

Annette winced as she noticed the confusion on her daughter's face. "Hopefully you'll feel better in a couple of days, can we take her home?"

Amy wasn't sure what the hell was going on. She'd 'woken' up in the middle of her shift wearing a mask but at least nothing had jumped out at her as being too strange other than the mask. She reached out and patted Emma on the arm and checked on her biology. 'Okay, you're Emma Barnes or close enough except you're a parahuman.' She was glad that her voice changer covered how uneasy she was as she said, "I patched her up as good as new."

Emma handed Taylor the bag she was carrying. "Awesome, get dressed or you'll freeze your behind off on the way to the car and I like your behind."

Taylor pulled out a short black dress, black silk panties, a pair of knee length socks and a pair of sandals out of the bag. "Thanks."

Annette looked at Panacea, "Are you and your father still coming to tomorrow's barbeque?"

"Ah…" Amy trailed off not quite sure how to respond, "so far as I know, you'd have to ask him to be sure."

"Good, that will give us a chance to chat about what we're going to do about Sophia." Annette frowned slightly as her cell phone rang. "Sorry, I should take this, it might be one of the TAs at the college." She pulled her phone out and stepped out of the room.

Emma grumbled, "Don't worry, we'll figure something out, we've put up with the bitch's crap long enough."

Taylor finished pulling on her clothes wondering what the hell was going on.

A nurse ran up to the open door. "We need you Panacea! Sorry, the doctors need you, a guy came in with multiple gunshot wounds and it looks bad."

"Duty calls, lead the way." Amy quickly followed the nurse almost relieved that there was something mundane for her to worry about. She made sure to brush the woman claiming to be Taylor's mother with her hand so that she could check to see if she was related to Taylor. She almost stopped in surprise when she found out that the woman was actually related to Taylor but decided that saving a man's life and not making a scene was more important.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor stared as she stepped out of the elevator and noticed what could only be described as a big fluffy werewolf security guard standing by the desk. "What the hell is that?"

Emma glanced around looking for anything strange. "What do you mean?"

Taylor whispered, "Why does the hospital have a werewolf security guard?"

Annette said, "Some thieves decided to try a smash and grab on hospital supplies a few months ago, Lunari took offense to someone messing with the hospital in her territory and 'loaned' them some security guards."

"Right, werewolves and…" she trailed off as she saw her father with a girl that could have been her slightly younger twin if she'd been airbrushed, given cat ears, breasts and a long and fluffy black cat's tail. She blushed as her gaze was drawn to the girl's breasts her little purple dress did a nice job showing off. "Catgirls…"

Danny asked, "Are you okay?" as he got closer.

"I'm…" She frowned as she realized that she couldn't tell him that she was fine, her tongue just wouldn't form the words. "I'll be okay, just some missing memory…" Taylor trailed off as she realized that her father was glowing though fainter than her mother and Emma which meant that he probably had a weak power.

Danny pulled Taylor into a hug. "Sorry, I was in a meeting and the phones were turned off, the stupid thing ran long and then I had to grab Beth from Riley's house."

"I'm just a bit confused… things aren't making sense."

Beth pouted, "Let's get you home and full of some chicken soup, then you can fill us in on what happened."

Annette asked, "How does pizza sound? I have lesson plans to look over for school so I don't feel like cooking tonight."

"Pizza sounds fine," Danny admitted. He'd had a long day dealing with union business and didn't feel like cooking, especially since he wanted to know what the hell happened to his daughter.

Emma said, "I vote pineapple."

Beth piped up, "Supreme with pineapple."

Taylor shivered. It was just weird knowing that this version of her had a sister and that Emma was nice and bubbly and still apparently her friend or maybe more than just friends which was all sorts of weird. 'Okay, none of this is making any sense. We killed Scion, shouldn't that be the end? I didn't even get to kill the Endbringers, hopefully Flechette and Copycat can figure it out if they're still there.' She looked up as her mother called her name. "What?"

Annette said, "I asked what you wanted for pizza."

Taylor shook the cobwebs from her brain with some effort. "Let's go with the kitty's suggestion."

"Works for me, Anne should be home soon so we'll order an extra couple of pizzas." Danny pulled his cell phone out and dialed his second most favorite pizza company as the first was out of the way.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

By the time they'd gotten back to the house and devoured half the pizza Taylor had figured out a couple of things, Emma and her sister lived with them because their parents had died and that Emma's older sister Anne had no shame, thinking there was nothing wrong with stripping naked once they got home. She was trying not to stare at Anne too much while her dad talked a little about the contracts that he'd gotten for the dockworkers association like there was nothing weird about Anne being naked. While she was happy that this world's shipping industry was a lot healthier, she really just wanted to spend some time on her computer researching the world or hugging the stuffings out of her mother.

Beth piped up, "Okay, what the heck are we going to do with Sophia? I vote we boil her in oil and feed her to the werewolves."

Danny shook his head. "Tossing her to the werewolves sounds a bit drastic unless she was actually involved."

Emma snorted. "We don't have proof that it was her. Besides, she has a twisted crush on Taylor, this doesn't fit."

Annette looked at Taylor as she asked, "What do you remember?"

Taylor had to resist the urge to gag at the idea of Sophia having a crush on her. "Waking up in the hospital… beyond that I have some rather alarming holes in my memories."

"You have your computer, looking things up might help," Annette replied.

Taylor nodded. "That might be for the best."

Danny asked, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm…" Taylor glanced over at Anne who was eating a piece of pizza then pulled her attention back to her father. "Why can't I lie?" She asked in frustration.

Danny frowned slightly. "You don't remember?"

"No."

Beth pointed her finger at Danny. "That's because Dad is a master and stranger 1, most people can't intentionally lie to him or even near him, it's rather annoying."

Danny grinned at his daughter. "It helps to get contracts for the dockworkers and for keeping certain catgirls honest."

Beth pouted at her father.

Taylor glanced at the rest of her 'family'. Judging by the glow her mother had a decently strong power as did Emma and Anne. "Do we have any other capes in the family?"

Beth said, "I'm just a catgirl, no real powers beyond enhanced agility and jumping."

Annette said, "Don't tell anyone but yeah, we're capes. I can temporarily give people the ability to imbue magic into objects."

"Magic?" Taylor asked in disbelief.

"Parahuman abilities, magic, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."

Emma said, "I can permanently or temporarily swap properties of objects that I touch."

"Properties?"

"I can make a chunk of metal as hard as wax for example if I have a chunk of wax or cloth as hard to cut as steel or better depending on what I can grab."

Beth said, "Don't forget making stuff fireproof."

Anne spoke up, "She can also make herself more durable by touching something hard, at least for an hour or two."

Emma shrugged. "It helps when I'm hunting gang members."

"You're a hero?" Taylor asked curiously.

"Well duh, just like we always promised each other."

Taylor looked at 'her' mother. "Are you a hero?"

Annette shook her head. "No, I'd much rather make things or enable capes to make things than risk myself against villains or their minions. Besides, the Guild pays me well for my services, far better than they pay their heroes."

Emma grumbled. "Cheapskates."

Annette laughed. "You're the one that wanted to be a hero."

"Is there a web page that lists the local capes?" Taylor asked hoping that there was something that would let her catch up.

Beth spoke up, "PHO, I'll show you." She giggled as she bounced to her feet and headed for their room.

"If you need something call…" Danny trailed off unsure how to help his daughter.

"I will." Taylor followed Beth, curious about the local hero scene. She stopped at the doorway of 'her' room and stared, she recognized several things from her old bedroom but the two sets of bunk beds were different as was a large poster of a very attractive naked pale skinned silver haired woman on the wall that she recognized from Emma's description of this world's 'first' cape, Eldritch. There were also four computers on the desks that looked like custom jobs with clear plastic cases and glowing lights sitting on desks tucked in various places around the room. In short it was a very cozy space and looked a bit crowded but workable if everyone got along. "How many computers do we need?"

Beth said, "Four, otherwise we couldn't play Warfire and burn our enemies to death then fuck them."

Taylor blinked as she tried to process that statement. "What?"

"You don't remember Warfire?" Beth asked as she walked over to her bed.

"No…" Taylor trailed off as she tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with the world.

"It's an awesome fantasy adventure game where you can kill people and rape their corpses for bounties." Beth pulled her dress off over her head and tossed it in her hamper.

Taylor turned and stared at Beth in shock. "What the hell is wrong with your head?"

Beth managed to keep a straight face for a couple of seconds before she snickered. "Sorry but the look on your face was funny."

Taylor glared at her laughing 'sister'. "You're evil. You realize that right? I mean I tell you I have some memory loss from being attacked and this is the shit I get?"

"Sorry…" Beth pouted. "But I am your little sister, I'm pretty sure being evil is in the job description."

"That's no excuse for…" Taylor trailed off as she realized that her sister was rather cute when she pouted. She shook her head and focused on the computers. "Which one is mine?"

"The one on the left next to your bed."

Taylor sat down and turned the screen on and blinked as she saw the background which was a picture of Emma sprawled out on an oversized food platter with an apple in her mouth without a stitch of clothing. "What the hell?"

"One of Emma's weirdest modeling gigs but it paid well."

Taylor twitched slightly, "What's the deal with Anne?"

Beth shrugged. "She hasn't been all there since Emma's trigger event. Then again, most capes have issues."

Taylor double clicked on the web icon as she decided to ignore Anne's issues for now. She typed in Endbringers and started reading. It didn't take her more than a couple of minutes to realize that in some ways this world was better off and in others it wasn't. The first endbringer seemed less problematic than Behemoth while the second and third were worse than Leviathan and Simurgh in their own twisted way. "Let me get this straight, the first endbringer is a fifty foot tall titan with weather control that likes to toss lightning at people and play kick the can with cars?"

"Basically, the weather gets worse the longer he's in a city but he's better than the other two if only because he doesn't leave monsters behind."

"I'm not even sure how the hell the other two even work, Labyrinth is a twelve foot tall woman of stunning beauty that slips in and turns cities into twisted dungeons filled with monsters to fight and magical items for heroes to find and the third endbringer creates clouds of twisted 'magic' that travel through the city transforming men into monsters and getting women pregnant with monsters from myth and lore."

"Basically, yes," Beth agreed.

"Is that why you're a catgirl?"

"Nope, that would be Anne's fault, her power changes people into catgirls. I just happened to be there when she triggered."

"Sorry." Taylor guessed that explained why Anne hadn't explained her power earlier.

"It wasn't your fault." Beth dropped her voice to a whisper. "Blame the Teeth, I do. They killed Alan and Zoe in front of Emma which caused her trigger. Anne didn't take it well and self destructed, dropped into depression and tried to kill herself which caused her trigger. Hell if I understand the logic there but what can you do? At least she's doing better."

"The Teeth?"

"A group of cannibals, led by a man calling himself the Butcher, he gets stronger every time he eats a cape's heart."

Taylor twitched. "More powers?"

"Not always, mostly just more strength and durability."

"Great, and the other gangs?" Taylor asked warily.

"They come and go, Skull and Bones are a group with powers over the 'dead' or at least that's their claim and the Adepts are a group of parahumans that style themselves as magic users. There are also a number of independent villains scattered around the city." Beth moved over and sat down on her stool in front of her computer. "Hopefully a good night's sleep will shake loose your memories."

"Hopefully…" Taylor wasn't going to hold out hope that she'd 'remember' anything but if she was stuck here she was going to try to find out everything she could about the new world.


	5. Chapter 5

Annette smiled as Taylor walked into the living room. "How are you feeling?"

Taylor covered her mouth as she yawned. She'd stayed up a bit too late looking up details on the town and capes in general. "Considering I got attacked, left unconscious, triggered with an unknown ability, lost my memory yesterday and have to relearn a bunch of world history stuff? About as well as can be expected I guess…"

"I'd wondered," Annette replied with a smile.

"That's it? You'd wondered?"

Annette smiled as she walked over and pulled Taylor into a hug. "Your father and I are capes and you suffered enough trauma that your memories got scrambled, if you hadn't triggered I would have been shocked, especially considering Amy mentioned that you had the potential."

"Now if I can just figure out what my new power is, I'll be happier," Taylor muttered.

"Any ideas?" Annette asked.

"I get the feeling that I have to touch someone for it to work."

"In that case, I should probably use my power on you and you can see what type of magic items you can create, that should give us some idea what your power does."

"What about school?" Taylor asked wearily.

"I'll give them a call and tell them that you're not coming in until the lawyer gets through with them for not replacing the damaged cameras in that section of the school. But, onto pleasant things." Annette reached out and touched Taylor's hand and used her power.

Taylor blinked as strange symbols and ideas started bouncing around her head. "Oh, I need cloth, some thread and some thin cardboard..."

Annette watched Taylor rush off with amusement to find the supplies she needed to create something interesting. "The sewing supplies are in the basement."

0o0o0

Emma stared at the bright green witch's hat that Taylor had spent the morning crafting under the influence of Annette's power while Beth and her had been at school.. "Any idea what this does?"

"Not a clue, that's why we're testing it," Taylor replied. She'd spent the rest of the day pouring through her world history books. Everything before parahumans showed up seemed to be identical or near enough as far as she could tell. In this world, Eldritch had shown up, told people her name then proceeded to wander around cleaning up the environment when she wasn't fighting Titan or wandering around the world naked.

Annette said, "It should be fine."

Beth said, "If you're scared of a hat, I'll do it."

Emma picked the hat up off the end table and set it on her head. "Oh, hey I have a pool of energy…" she trailed off as she waved her hand and shot a bolt of lightning like energy into a vase by the wall which caused it to explode. "Shit."

Annette sighed as she blinked a few times to get the spots out of her vision. "At least it was the ugly vase that Danny's mother gave us."

Taylor blinked as she discovered that she could sense Emma's health and mana pool. "Huh, that's…"

Emma continued, "Interesting…" her fingers wiggled. "What the hell? I'm not moving my hand and it's moving…"

"Oh sorry, I think that was my fault," Taylor admitted.

Emma asked nervously, "How much of my body can you control?"

Taylor used Emma's arms and hands to clap a couple of times. "Huh, it's like I'm in two places at the same time."

Beth asked, "How does that explain the lightning?"

"She has a mana pool and health bar and the lightning spell costs mana."

Emma asked, "Can I take the hat off yet?"

Beth laughed, "I don't know, having a mind controlled redhead sounds kinky."

Taylor reached over and grabbed the hat. "I can't feel you anymore which is probably for the best."

Emma pouted. "And the magic is gone."

Beth held out her hand eagerly. "My turn."

Taylor stared at Beth. "Really? You want to be mind controlled?"

"One, I trust you and two, magic catgirl." Beth wiggled her cat like ears.

Taylor held out the hat. "Sure, knock yourself out."

Annette quickly said, "No more lightning in the house."

Beth put the hat on. "Okay, I feel the energy... and I wanna dance." She bounced up and started dancing a bit spastically.

Emma raised an eyebrow as she asked, "Is that because of your lack of control or because of your lack of dancing skill?"

"Hey!" Beth's hand rose up and flipped Emma off.

"Lack of dancing skill," Taylor muttered.

Annette asked, "Does the energy feel like lightning?"

Beth asked, "How the hell would I know? What does lightning feel like? It's tingly but that could mean anything."

Taylor reached out and took the hat back. "Okay, if I fall over or start convulsing then take the hat off me." She placed the hat on her head. "Okay, floating symbols for shock, no mana bar or anything though. Apparently the hat works a little differently on me than the rest of you."

Annette asked, "Can you still control Emma or Beth?"

Taylor spent a few seconds trying to get her previous control back then took the hat off and tried again. "Nothing."

Emma frowned. "That's a rather terrifying power."

Beth grinned as she sat back down on the couch. "And useful if we can shoot lightning at people."

"Did you miss the whole mind control bit?"

"Nope but I trust her. Besides, I'm pretty sure it's just body control."

Emma asked, "Can you use our powers?"

Taylor gave Emma a smile that was just a bit on the creepy side of amused. "Considering I felt something when you had the hat on, I'm guessing yes."

"I'm not sure if I should be worried or not."

Annette sighed. "That makes me a little curious about your actual power. The 'magic' items aren't always a straight up copy."

"Which means I might turn people into zombies or do something else horrible to them?" Taylor asked warily.

"Powers are weird but probably not that different. Either way, no testing your power on family until we figure it out."

Beth pouted, "But, magic catgirl, I mean please?"

"Not until we test it on some volunteers." Annette shook her head when Emma raised her hand. "Someone that your sister can live with turning into a zombie or abomination if something goes tragically wrong."

Taylor had to agree with that logic. "I could always try it on a lab rat."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "So you're going to create rats that toss lightning?"

"Okay, when you put it that way, that might not be the best idea but at least we wouldn't be sad if it died," Taylor admitted.

Beth mock pouted, "I'm sure someone would buy a real life pikachu."

Annette shook her head. "There should be some spiders in the basement that would work as test cases."

Taylor headed down the stairs to the basement with the rest of them following her, glanced around the disturbingly clean basement then walked over to the workbench and touched the spider that was spinning a web under it and used her power. She smiled as she could suddenly feel the spider with a different part of her powers than her normal bug control. "That seems to have worked, it even has a tiny mana and health bar."

Beth asked, "What type of magic does it have?"

Taylor jumped back as a tiny cloud of purple gas spewed forth from the spider. "That's not lightning." She reached out and grabbed control of the spider. "I've got control."

Emma asked, "Do you have to control it?"

"I don't think so but it's a magic spider that can use a poison attack. I'd rather not have it uncontrolled."

Annette said, "Drop your control then grab it again."

Taylor shrugged as she dropped her control over the spider then grabbed it again. She dropped control then reacquired it a couple of times without any issues. "I can pick up or drop control as needed which is nice." She considered smashing the spider then decided to leave it as a test of her range. "I should probably leave the spider alive to test my range."

Annette nodded. "Considering the cloud of purple stuff is gone it's probably safe enough but you should probably stick it in an empty coffee can or something so it's not wandering around. We don't need the spider creating an army of magic spiders if you lose control of it."

Taylor frowned slightly as she flashed back to some of the monstrous spiders she'd helped Beth kill in Warfire the night before. "That's a good point."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor wasn't sure if she should be happy or concerned that she'd had no trouble maintaining control of her spider even from halfway across the city at the pet store. She was happy that she could sit in her house and have her little minions running around other places but she was also worried that her parents would use that to keep her out of the field. Thankfully her multitasking ability seemed to work just fine with her new power which meant that she didn't lose focus or control even if she had an army of mice and spiders under her control. "Now that we've finished the animal trials and I can run the mice through a dozen different mazes without a problem, who are we going to test my power on?"

Annette said, "I have a TA that is studying parahumans and 'magic', he'd love to have abilities or magic. While I'm not sure I'd trust him with my secret identity, I trust that he won't abuse any powers he gets. It's better than grabbing some random person off the street."

Beth muttered, "Probably better than grabbing Sophia and using her as a test subject."

Emma sighed. "About that, it wasn't her. At least according to Madison who was on the stairs when it happened."

"Who was it?" Taylor demanded.

"Greg was the one that attacked you with a cattle pod and left you unconscious."

Annette asked, "Greg?"

"Greg Veder, one of our classmates that had a crush on Taylor."

Taylor blinked and could almost feel her mental gears slipping as she tried to make sense of that statement. "The hell?"

Emma sighed. "Apparently he had a mental breakdown when Taylor turned him down before break and decided that if he got 'even' then Sophia would have sex with him. How the hell he thought that would work, I have no idea, considering Sophia likes girls."

"Not to mention the sheer number of witnesses that had to see him following her," Beth complained.

"I guess it could be worse, I could have cracked my skull or something on the railing or steps," Taylor muttered as she tried to figure out how the hell Greg of all people had gotten the jump on her.

Annette reached out and pulled Taylor into a hug. "Sorry."

Taylor let herself be pulled into a hug. "It wasn't your fault."

"It was Greg's fault," Emma muttered darkly.

Beth said, "Not to change the subject but Taylor is going to need a costume if she wants to meet with your TA without giving her identity away."

Annette let Taylor go. "We still have a couple of masks from Halloween if you want to be lazy."

Taylor smiled. "I'll have a better idea what I want for my costume once I know the extent of my powers but I'm thinking armored robes and an armored mask if I have to take the field. I should be able to enhance a group of spiders and have them weave the robes out of spider silk." Even if she couldn't, nothing stopped her from doing it the old fashioned way.

Emma laughed. "If you figure out how to make spider silk robes, I'll use my power and make sure they're fire resistant and a bunch of other stuff."

Taylor jumped slightly as the doorbell rang. "Are we expecting anyone?"

"Amy, Amelia and Claire." Beth bounced off the couch and over to the door and opened it revealing Amy and her two identical sisters and their father William. "Welcome, if you want I'll take that to the kitchen."

William Lavere gave Beth a polite smile as he handed her the large covered plate that held a pile of raw steaks. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Beth grinned as she turned and headed toward the kitchen.

Annette said, "Come in and take a load off. Danny and Anne ran to the store but they'll be back shortly."

William let the girls step in first then followed her in and closed the door. "Always a pleasure."

Amy hung her jacket on the coat rack then walked over and sat down next to Taylor. "How are you doing?"

Taylor shrugged. "I still haven't gotten my memory back but at least I'm not having nightmares."

William hung his coat on the rack then walked over and sat down across from Annette. "Memory issues? The girls had a couple of memory issues last night but they seem better, it makes me wonder if there is a stranger or a master running around causing memory loss."

Amy was just glad that she'd taken a couple of minutes to ask one of the desk people about security and learned that she had a driver before she made a scene last night. She was also extremely happy to wake up and realize that she had a large chunk of 'her' memories back including memories of her family. She wasn't sure what to think about her sisters considering they had the same powers and personality quirks as her copies and remembered being her copies and sisters. Finding out that her father's powers were a near perfect match for Marquis' powers hadn't been as much of a shock as it probably should have been thanks to some of the things she'd overheard Carol say over the years. Thankfully he wasn't a villain in this world, he ran a security business that helped keep various businesses safe from local gangs. She pulled her attention back to her father. "Nothing a good night of sleep couldn't cure."

"If only it was that easy," Taylor muttered.

William asked, "Did you find the person responsible for the attack?"

"We haven't heard back from the police officially, but it looks like it was just a classmate having a psychotic break over the fact that I turned him down for a date."

William shook his head at the insanity of teens. "My condolences."

"It happened but I'm alive and well so I guess that's the important thing. The worst part is the weird memory loss that came with it."

"I'm sure it will get better." Annette hoped that it would get better and she guessed it could have been worse as she could have easily lost her daughter but it still hurt that she couldn't just reach out and fix things for her daughter.

Beth walked back into the living room as the front door opened and Danny and Anne came in carrying bags of groceries. Danny smiled at William. "Traffic must not be too bad."

William shook his head. "Not really."

Beth closed the door then grabbed the bag of groceries from her father and followed Anne into the kitchen.

Danny asked, "Any trouble with work?"

William said, "Not really, I think everyone is still recovering from the New Year's celebrations. We're going to have to do something about the Teeth though. They're getting bolder and their leader is getting stronger."

Emma scowled. "I wish the adult heroes would get it together and kill him."

Annette frowned as she thought about the damage the teeth had done over the years. "It's not that simple but it would be nice."

Danny said, "I'm going to start the grill."

Anne walked out of the kitchen with a scowl on her face. "Let's fire up Warfire, I feel like smashing some monsters."

Taylor briefly considered staying then decided that she might as well help Anne relax a bit before dinner. Besides, she wanted a chance to talk with Amy and the game let her whisper other players. "Sounds good."

0o0o0 88 (remember greg attack, not a locker)

Amy watched her father walk outside to talk with Danny then asked in a whisper, "How much do you remember?"

Taylor glanced around the living room, her mother was in the kitchen with Anne and Amelia working on dessert and her sister, Claire and Emma were working on profession quests for Warfire which meant it should be safe enough to answer as long as she was quiet. "Everything from the other world, nothing from this one, you?"

"Everything from before and a decent chunk from this world. It's weird knowing that you and Emma are the best of friends in this world. Almost as weird as living with my father and sisters or knowing that Beth's best friend and snuggle buddy is Bonesaw."

Taylor coughed, "What?!"

Annette called out from the kitchen, "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine Mom, Amy was just telling me some stuff about the city that was weird." She whispered, "Bonesaw? Really?"

"She's a sweet if kinky tinker/medical enchanter girl in this world," Amy replied in a whisper.

"Does the Slaughterhouse Nine exist?" Taylor hadn't managed to find any trace of them but that didn't mean they hadn't.

"Not that I could find. No case 53s or Cauldron capes either at least as far as I could find." Amy shrugged. "No PRT or Protectorate either."

"That reminds me, who do we turn criminals over to?"

"Either the police or the Guild. Speaking of, have you figured out your new power?" Amy asked.

Annette walked out of the kitchen with a plate filled with frosted brownies. "We're still testing her powers but she basically imbues magic into living organisms that she can then puppet."

Amy smiled slightly. "And I thought my powers were impressive."

Taylor still wasn't sure what to make of her new powers, they reminded her a bit too much of Khepri and Teacher. "I have some magic mice and a magic spider in the basement."

"Does it work on people?"

"I created a magic hat that gives people magic and lets me puppet them at least while the hat is worn so there is a good chance," Taylor admitted.

"Damn." Amy had a sinking feeling that a number of the gangs were going to be interested in her power. "Have you considered having Anne use her power on a cat then controlling the catgirl?"

Taylor asked in surprise, "She can do that?"

Anne walked in carrying a couple of glasses and a bottle of sparkling cider. "I can, but they basically start off as unskilled catgirls with a basic grasp of English. Changing kittens into toddler catgirls works nicely though. Most of that isn't really an issue if you just want a body to puppet though."

Annette shrugged. "Well, Miss Figg has a bunch of kittens that like to wander over here and scare the birds. She has over a dozen cats plus the kittens and is always talking about finding good homes for them, I'll ask her if she'd part with two of them."

Taylor sighed. "I'm still not sure about this, I don't really want to puppet anyone."

"Then don't puppet anyone and focus on the fact that you grant people abilities."

"Besides, having the ability to look through people's eyes would make spying easier." Amy thought, 'Not that you'll ever need help spying on people.'

"What if they're doing something that I don't want to see?" Taylor asked with concern.

"Then don't look through their eyes. You can always check their hearing first," Anne replied.

"Okay, I guess we need to know if there are any horrible side effects," Taylor admitted reluctantly.

Anne picked up two large frosted brownies then headed for the door, "I'll go talk to Miss Figg."

"Thanks," Taylor replied. She still wasn't sure about puppeting people but she needed to know how safe her power was if she wanted to enhance her family and friends.

Amy reached out and grabbed one of the brownies. "These look really good."

"Help yourself, we made plenty."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor wasn't sure if she should be fascinated or horrified as Anne's power morphed the orange and white kitten into a cute 'five' year old catgirl with white and orange hair over five seconds. "Hi?"

The catgirl blinked a couple of times before stepping closer and hugging Anne's leg. "Mommy?"

Anne patted the catgirl's head. "You'll be brave for mommy, right?"

"I'm not a scaredy cat."

Anne looked at Taylor. "Do your thing."

Taylor made a mental prayer to whoever was listening that her power didn't fry the cute catgirl. Even if she'd been a kitten not two minutes ago she looked disturbingly cute and innocent. "Maybe practicing on the TA would be better."

Annette reassured her daughter, "That's still an option, I could call and set something up for tomorrow."

Emma said, "You'll be fine."

Claire said, "I can probably fix any mental problems you give her."

"Mental problems?" The catgirl asked nervously.

"Fine…" Taylor carefully reached out and touched the girl's shoulder and activated her power. Unlike with the mice or spider she actually felt her mana or energy drop as mana flowed into the catgirl awaking her own magic and imprinting a spell. She smiled as she could feel the girl's mana pool and health bar, they were a lot larger than the spider or even the various mice she'd enhanced. She reached out and looked through her eyes and listened with her ears. "Testing?"

Anne reached down and lifted the catgirl up. "How do you feel?"

"Okay, can I have tuna now?" The catgirl asked hopefully.

Beth nodded. "Tuna is good."

Anne laughed as she set the girl down. "I'll make you a tuna sandwich as soon as Taylor runs a couple more tests and Amy checks you out."

"Tests?" The catgirl asked curiously.

"Yep, she needs to borrow your hand for a minute."

The cat girl looked up at Anne with her green cat like eyes as she asked nervously, "Will I get it back?"

"Of course you will," Taylor replied as reassuringly as she could.

"Okay."

Taylor focused on the catgirl's hand and wiggled 'her' fingers. "That seems to work and I can see through her eyes and everything."

The catgirl stared as the fingers of her right hand wiggled despite her not doing anything. She poked her wiggling hand with her left index finger. ""Weird. I can feel it but I can't move it."

Annette asked, "Do your eyes feel weird?"

"My eyes are fine."

"Did it hurt?" Taylor asked nervously.

The catgirl shook her head. "Nope."

"In that case, can I borrow the rest of you for a minute?"

"Then I get tuna?" The catgirl asked hopefully.

Taylor nodded. "Then you get tuna."

"Okay!" The catgirl giggled.

Taylor assumed control of the catgirl and wiggled her fingers and spun around once before doing a jumping jack. "It really is like being in two places at once." She dropped control but kept a light touch on the girl's senses. 'At least I'll be able to spy on people.'

The catgirl wiggled her fingers. "Tuna?"

Amy held out her hand. "Let me check something first."

"Then Tuna." The catgirl held out her hand.

Amy lightly grabbed the catgirl's hand then checked her health. 'Okay, her brain works better than I was expecting, her immune system might need some tweaking but she's healthy.' She gave the girl a smile. "All better."

Anne reached out and touched the second kitten she'd talked Miss Figg into selling and changed her into another orange and white haired catgirl. "Hi."

"Mommy?" The girl glanced around curiously.

Anne patted the catgirl on the head. "Just hold still for a second then I'll get you some tuna."

Taylor reached out and used her power on the second catgirl and checked to make sure she could control her. "I'll have to test what 'magic' spell they received somewhere with more space, but I'm calling this a win. I don't have to control them and I can ghost their senses if I want which is pretty cool."

Claire reached out with power and checked the catgirls for mental issues. "No mental issues to speak of and they're smart."

The first catgirl asked, "Tuna now?"

Anne laughed as she headed toward the kitchen. "Yes, tuna."

Amy watched the two catgirls follow Anne. "No mental issues, no physical flaws, it seems like your upgrade power is safe enough."

"Other than the whole mind control bit," Emma pointed out warily.

Beth shrugged. "That's a small price to pay for magic."

"I think I'll stick with the magic hat. I don't really need Taylor ghosting my eyes and seeing things she shouldn't." Annette smirked.

"Ack Mom!" Taylor rubbed her face once she realized what her mother was implying.

Beth held out her hand. "She can ghost me anytime she wants."

Annette said, "Just don't abuse your power."

"Are you sure?" Taylor asked dubiously.

"Of course I'm sure, I want magic and letting you share my senses is a small price to pay for magic. Besides, I trust you."

Taylor took Beth's hand and empowered her. "There done."

"Awesome, let's see…" Beth trailed off as she vanished and reappeared halfway across the room. "Wicked!"

"Teleportation, great..." Annette trailed off as she thought about how much trouble her daughters were going to get into being heroes.

.

Amy laughed. "It could be worse, it could be something completely useless."

Beth looked at Taylor. "You're the best sister ever."

Taylor reached out and connected to Beth's senses. "Thanks, I think."

Emma held out her hand. "Boost me before I change my mind."

"Are you sure?"

"My best combat power is grabbing a piece of metal and getting durability out of it. Magic would help."

Taylor reached out slowly and grabbed Emma's hand. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I trust you."

There was a small part of Taylor that wanted to tell Emma to run and never look back but the larger part of her ignored the little angel on her shoulder and used her power on Emma. "Done."

Emma blinked as she realized that she had a pool of power and 'knew' how to use it, whatever it was. "Thank you."

Amelia spoke up, "You should probably wait and see if there are any side effects before you talk anyone else into getting boosted."

Amy glanced over at the time. "Besides, it's getting late and it's a school night."

Anne came back with the catgirls following her. "At least my power gives them the basics."

Taylor asked, "Where are they going to sleep?"

Annette glanced toward the hallway. "They can sleep on the pull out bed in the guest room until we can get another bunk bed."

Anne said, "I'll take them shopping for clothes in the morning."

Emma smiled at the two cute catgirls. "They're going to need names."

Anne said, "Ginger and Crimson."

Emma piped up, "Except their hair is orange and white rather than red."

"Fine, we can sleep on it and figure out something in the morning."


	6. Chapter 6

Taylor closed her eyes rather than stare at the ceiling over her bunk bed. She was still a bit surprised that Beth gave her permission to have fun and control her in her sleep. The fact that her sister trusted her that much was rather disturbing. She reached out and carefully took control of her sister's body. She waited several seconds to see if her control woke her sister up then opened Beth's eyes. 'Okay, so far so good.'

She wiggled Beth's toes and grinned when it didn't wake her sister up. She briefly considered running some more tests including walking her sleeping sister around then decided that her sister needed her rest and she had other things to worry about. She closed Beth's eyes then dropped her control. 'I should have grabbed a bird from the pet store.'

She focused on the catgirls that were curled up together on the guest bed. She took control of the first catgirl tentatively named 'Ginger' and carefully extracted the sleeping girl from the bed and headed out of the room. She felt a little guilty about it but she'd asked if she could run some tests and they'd said yes before they'd crashed out. She snuck down the basement stairs and extracted one of the mice from their cage after taking control of it. 'At least you don't look tasty or anything.' She brought the mouse over to where the spider was and took control of the spider and moved it over to the mouse so that it could use the mouse for transport.

The spider's eyes were a bit annoying to see through but the hearing was easy enough to deal with considering her previous experience with her swarm. 'Now if I can just get the mouse out of here without tripping off the house alarm. She smiled slightly when she saw the small window near the ceiling that led outside and the shelves under it that she could use to reach the window. It was a bit weird being short enough that she couldn't just reach up and open it. She walked over to the shelves and climbed up being careful not to smash her mouse. She opened the door and had the mouse scurry outside then shut the window and climbed down.

Taylor sent the mouse toward the docks as she walked Ginger up the stairs and to the bathroom so that she could wash her hands. She finished scrubbing her hands then snuck back to bed and slipped under the covers with Crimson. She closed Ginger's eyes and relaxed her control.

She focused on the mouse and spider as they headed toward the bad part of town. Her human body drifted off to sleep as she continued her hunt for information. Sixteen minutes later she sent her spider fleeing the dead mouse. 'Stupid feral cats.'

Thankfully her mouse had gotten her spider pretty close to an 'abandoned' property that several men were using as shelter. A little exploring and she found a decent amount of cash and drugs. Taylor drifted off to actual sleep as someone swatted her spider.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Anne looked up from her cereal as Taylor walked into the kitchen. "How did you sleep?"

Taylor glanced at the two catgirls that were seated at the table eating cereal. They looked well rested and happy so it obviously hadn't hurt Ginger to walk her around while she was asleep. "Decent enough, I tried scouting with one of the mice last night, it got eaten by a cat then my spider got swatted."

Ginger said, "Cats like mice."

Anne said, "No eating mice in your humanoid form, it's icky."

Crimson pouted. "Why not?"

"For one, you're a bit more human and uncooked meat is icky and rats crawl all over the place and get into lots of nasty things."

Crimson pouted. "Fine."

Taylor started working on her cereal. "Did everyone leave already?"

Anne said, "Beth and Emma went to school, Danny had to go into work and Annette is teaching, that means it's just us. Do you want to come with us to pick out clothes for the munchkins?"

Taylor didn't really want to spend the morning shopping but at the same time, she felt somewhat responsible for the catgirls considering they were turned into catgirls because she needed someone to test her magic on. Besides, it wasn't like she had anything else to do. "Sure."

"Thanks."

"How many 'heroes' are just people running around with 'magic' items?" Taylor reached out and tapped Emma and Beth's sight and hearing so that she wouldn't miss anything at school then started eating her cereal.

Anne shrugged. "It's hard to say, there are rogues that specialize in dungeon running that sell magical items on ebay but the more impressive the effect the larger the price tag which means that so called magic item capes are walking loot pinatas for villains."

"I guess that makes sense." Taylor went back to eating as she thought about how to acquire a decent enough collection of magical items to let her take the field without getting splattered or fighting from a distance like the last time around.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor twitched as she saw a skeleton walking down the street. "What the hell is that?"

Anne sighed. "We're on the edge of Skull and Bones territory which means undead."

"How come the heroes haven't cleared them out?"

"The heroes have tried a couple of times but the cape responsible just creates more of them. He doesn't come out in public or if he does, he has other powers and no one has connected the undead to him. That and he helps keep the Teeth out of the area which is a good thing."

"If people don't see him in public then how do you know it's a guy?" Taylor asked curiously.

"We don't, his screen name is Skeleton King which implies that he's male or pretending to be."

Ginger said, "Are the skeletons dangerous?"

Anne shrugged. "For the most part they're safe enough as long as you don't attack them."

Taylor frowned as she studied the walking skeleton. "You said they were a gang, any typical crimes?"

"Beyond grave digging and everything that goes along with that, assault against rival gangs and murder of villains that come into their territory and cause problems. They accept money for protection but don't damage places that don't pay, they just don't patrol those areas, still the price is cheap and it's decent security."

"What about the rest of the gang?"

Anne winced. "Less pleasant, the Zombie King reanimates dead people as revenants that work for him or collapse."

"Revenants?" Taylor asked in concern.

"Basically human looking dead people, they can think and reason and are a lot stronger and more durable than they were in life."

"Great, anything else to worry about?" Taylor asked warily.

"Crusader creates temporary ghosts of himself."

Taylor nodded. "Fun."

Crimson asked, "Can we get ice cream?"

Anne smiled at the two catgirls. "Considering you managed to behave at the junk store, we can grab some on the way home."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Taylor opened her door and raised her eyebrows when she saw Dennis standing on the porch. "Dennis, is this going to be a thing?"

Dennis shrugged. "You try waking up with a bunch of memories that aren't yours and see how well you process everything, especially memories of a screwed up world where the Endbringers are freakishly destructive."

"How much do you remember? I remember my old life but nothing from this world before getting knocked unconscious by a cattle prod." Taylor opened the door and gestured for him to come in.

'Better than being stuffed in a locker.' Dennis stepped inside and glanced around. "My life here and my life there or rather lives. You used to be a villain and a hero and then a hero and now, I'm not sure…"

"Hero or at least that's the plan." Taylor closed the door.

"Oh, good. Same powers or?"

"I still have my old powers and I picked up the ability to empower people with magic." Taylor grinned at the look of disbelief on his face.

"Wait, not only are you still a walking plague waiting to happen, you can reroll powers and give people powers?"

"More like magic and spells but sure, let's go with that."

"That's complete bullshit, you know that right?" He raised his eyebrows. "How long does it last?"

"I boosted my sister and a friend yesterday and they still have magic. I have a feeling that it's permanent."

"Skitter OP, please nerf," he replied with amusement mixed with a touch of jealousy.

"It gets worse," Taylor admitted as she walked over and sat down on the armrest of the couch.

"How?"

"I can tap into the senses of the people I've empowered at range and use their senses. That's the official version…"

"Please don't tell me you can mind control them…"

Taylor shrugged. "Okay, I won't tell you."

"Fuck me…" Dennis trailed off as he tried to figure out to avoid his friend being sent to the Birdcage on trumped up charges.

"Little bit of a PR nightmare isn't it?" she asked sarcastically.

"To say the least. I wouldn't admit to being able to puppet people unless you want to be sent to the Birdcage." He took a step back. "Just out of curiosity, what is the range on your enhancement power?"

"Relax, even if I used my touch ranged enhancement power on you, it doesn't cause you to become my slave it simply gives me the option to puppet your body and or tap your senses. As for the range I can look through someone's eyes, I'm not sure, I haven't left the city yet."

"Right, because that's not scary as hell," Dennis complained.

"You have no room to talk Mr. I can temporarily freeze an area in time then walk around in it and move things."

"In addition to being able to being able to speed up a bubble of time and freeze objects," Dennis added smugly.

"What was it you said before, OP please nerf?" Taylor asked with amusement.

"That about sums it up." He walked over and sat on the far side of the couch.

"Okay, so… we're here, now what?"

"I guess we figure out how your new power should work officially. Can you empower and control animals? That's a lot more sellable than controlling people."

"Mice, spiders, humans and catgirls so far which leads me to believe that I can empower most living creatures."

"Objects?" Dennis asked curious about her powers.

"Not that I've noticed but there's always a chance that I'll find something I can empower." She wasn't going to out her mother which meant not talking about crafting magical objects.

"What does your so called empowering actually do?"

"It depends on who or what I empower. The spider gained the power to create a tiny cloud of purple gas, the mice various stealth related spells which I forgot to actually use when I was out scouting last night."

"Oh?" Dennis asked, sensing a story.

"It was snagged by a cat, damned thing came out of nowhere," Taylor admitted.

Dennis laughed.

Taylor glared at Dennis. "It's not that funny."

He held up his thumb and index finger an inch apart. "Just a bit."

"You try going from having thousands of expendable minions that you can just replace by walking around to having to care what happens to them, it's weird." While she could have used her swarm, it didn't have the range she'd wanted.

"Almost as weird as waking up and having a bunch of extra memories?"

"Probably, at least the first time we just jumped backwards through time, probably." Taylor walked over and sat on the couch.

Dennis shrugged. "I don't know, I sort of like this world, no Scion, no horrible world destroying endbringers and having the first cape be a playful naked female exhibionist really helped with the nudist movement. Of course, she's probably this world's Scion, but at least she's friendlier."

"Speaking of, are all the capes kinky or am I imagining things? Because the internet is a scary place here."

"You're not imagining things, a lot of capes seem drawn toward perversion of one type or another rather than direct conflict."

"Right, so what's your issue?"

"I like big butts and I cannot lie," he replied jokingly.

"Right, obviously you can," she replied with a touch of amusement.

"I'm a teenage male and I was rather irreverent even before I got my powers, still if I had to guess, I'd say it's my tendency to like kicking villains in the nuts while they're frozen in time. I mean seriously, who does that?"

"Considering your cape name…" Taylor trailed off with a smile.

"Point." He grinned. "But seriously, some capes are worse than others, Vista hates clothes, Lunari likes her dogs a bit too much and enough said about Heartstealer and his perversions the better."

"Heartstealer?"

"He's an independant villain, well rogue technically as the cops can't make anything stick. He owns a nightclub with strippers and escorts."

"Why is he a villain?" Taylor asked warily.

"There was a group of high school football jocks that got rough with one of the girls at the club and some religious people protesting his club and keeping people from enjoying themselves, the next day," Dennis shivered, "the cops found the football players and the priests fornicating in the street in front of the church. They kept babbling about serving the great salami god while they were being hauled away. Everyone 'knew' it was Heartstealer but no one saw anything and they couldn't prove it as none of the 'victims' would testify."

"That's twisted, why does anyone go to his club?" Taylor asked in disbelief.

"Because of the hot naked waitresses and the escorts or so I imagine." Dennis shrugged.

"Drugs?"

"Nothing other than alcohol. People that try to sell there typically end up at the police station confessing their sins."

"Who runs drugs in the city?" Taylor asked, looking for acceptable targets.

He scowled. "The Teeth for the most part."

"How are they still functional?"

"They live in the sewers and have some rather nasty capes and monsters. The place is a maze and a death trap. If I'm careful I could probably walk down there chaining my time bubbles but the problem becomes finding anyone other than low level grunts and monsters. That and certain sections are filled with poisonous and corrosive gas which makes them a pain to deal with."

Taylor frowned as she thought of possible solutions. "It sounds like I'm going to need to send rats down there to check things out."

"It would be nice to have some help, we don't have as many heroes as the other world did," he admitted.

"Did anyone else come back?"

"You mean other than Panacea and you? Vista was giving me weird looks last night, Kid Win was distracted at school, not unusual but maybe a little suspect. Gallant seemed normal enough and Aegis was his normal self. Rune and Emma were off duty last night and they go to Winslow so I haven't seen them since I got my alternate's memories."

"And the adult heroes?"

"Nothing too strange at least not last night. Armsmaster was working in his forge creating a magical sword, Miss Militia was patrolling and Dauntless was working on his gear which is normal enough."

Taylor shook her head. "I'm not sure which is more disturbing, Armsmaster crafting magic items or the fact that the city only has three adult heroes."

"It's almost enough to miss Shadow Stalker," he held up his hands at her glare, "I said almost."

"I'm glad that she isn't a cape in this world considering Sophia has a warped crush on me or rather my alternate self. It's rather disturbing."

Dennis shook his head. "Better you than me..." He trailed off as Anne stepped into the living room from the kitchen wearing nothing save a smile. "Ah…"

Anne flashed Dennis a smile as she walked in and sat on the chair opposite the couch. "Hey Dennis, what's up?"

Dennis decided staring at the attractive redhead might cause Skitter to object. "Amy mentioned Taylor's memory loss, figured I'd come over and see if I couldn't jog anything loose."

Taylor sighed. "It's not like I wanted to forget a bunch of random chunks of my life. I was just explaining my powers."

"Oh?" Anne asked, wondering how much she'd actually explained.

"I'm still not sure how bug control ties in with the ability to empower people or the fact that I'm a walking cape detector."

Dennis pulled his gaze off of Anne's breasts. "Hell if I know, powers are weird. Either way, I'm looking forward to having some help dealing with the Teeth."

Anne scowled as she thought about the group that had killed her parents. "I wish I had more combat focused abilities so I could help."

"I have a feeling the Teeth won't last all that long now that we have a Skitter." He was looking forward to seeing how the Teeth dealt with a biblical plague of insects chasing them out of the sewers.

Anne shook her head. "Skitter sounds a bit villainous. Why not Eldritch Arachnid or Ladybug?"

Taylor shook her head. "I'd rather not be stuck using 'friendly' bugs and I'm still trying to figure out if I want to use two different identities, one for my heroic persona and one for my rogue persona that can upgrade people with magical abilities."

Dennis snickered. "Nothing wrong with keeping your options open as long as it doesn't include glow in the dark spiders of doom."

"I might be able to pull that off with Panacea's help and some magic," Taylor mused, a little annoyed that she hadn't been able to find any evidence of the Travelers this time around.

Dennis shivered. "Shit, forget I said anything. Speaking of names and capes, you should come in and register as a hero at some point."

"As soon as I finish my costume," Taylor assured him. "Emma needs to tweak the material and I need to add some shock absorbing gel and some trauma plates but it's getting close."

"She does good work," Dennis agreed, happy that the new version of Emma was a lot saner than her alternate. "What are you thinking for your alternate identity's costume?"

"I'm not sure," Taylor admitted. "I'm open to suggestions."

Dennis pulled a notebook out of his pocket so he could make some costume sketches and take notes. "It depends on how tongue and cheek you want to get."

"Why do I have a feeling I should stick my fingers in my ears and not listen to your suggestions?" Taylor asked with amusement.

"Probably because his taste in cape names is suspect," Anne replied with amusement.

"Nothing wrong with Clockblocker. How about Faust?" Dennis asked jokingly.

Taylor snorted. "I'd never get anyone to agree to a deal."

"I'm fairly sure you would, there are a lot of idiots in the world," Dennis pointed out as he sketched a girl in robes in his notebook.

"Still no," Taylor replied, not wanting to give people a reason to see her as a villain this time around."

"What about Arcane Broker?" Anne asked, figuring it got the point across without screaming villain.

"Seems a little long, is Broker taken?" Taylor asked, not sure how claiming a name worked in this version of the cape community.

"Not that I know of which means you should be able to get away with using it though you might want to check the unofficial list on the boards."

"Worth a shot," Taylor agreed as she looked at the half finished sketch of a girl in robes that Dennis was drawing. "Robes?"

"They're fairly popular because of Myrddin and they do a decent job concealing your identity which is sort of important considering your power."

"Authentic or fake runes?" Anne asked as she looked at the drawing Dennis was working on.

"I was thinking Norse or maybe elvish," Dennis replied after a moment of thought. "It depends on if we're trying for deal maker or scary ass magic user?"

"I'd rather save the heroics for Skitter or Weaver."

Anne nodded. "In that case, let's go with Norse."

'At least I have help this time around,' Taylor mused to herself as she listened to the two capes toss ideas back and forth.


End file.
